CUE
THE SMALL SYSTEMS JOURNAL
DECE MBER 1985 VOL. 10, NO. 13
S3.50 IN UNITED STATES
$4.25 IN CANADA / £2.10 IN U.K.
A McGRAW-HILL PUBLICATION
0360-5280
COMPUTER
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Announcing Borland's New
Turbo Editor Toolbox " $69.95
IT'S ALL YOU NEED TO BUILD YOUR OWN WORD PROCESSOR
FOR ONLY $69.95!
You get all the modules you need to build your
own word processor.
• You get ready-to-compile source code.
• You get a full-featured word processor
that looks and acts like WordStar'"; we
call it MicroStar™
• You get a 200-page manual that tells
you how to integrate the editor proce-
dures and functions into your programs.
You can use Turbo Editor Toolbox "as is" or
modify it any way you want.
And you don't get a bill for Royalties.
Because Borland doesn't believe you should pay
for something more than once.
All this and more for only $69.95.
And until March l. 1986 you can get Bor-
land's new Turbo Editor Toolbox for even less!
(Only $47.50 when you buy the special Turbo
New Pack.)
YOU CAN HAVE MANY WINDOWS ON
THE WORLD. The new Turbo Editor Toolbox
features windowing, a technique that lets you
see several documents — or several parts of the
same document — at once. You know best what
your needs are. Turbo Editor Toolbox lets you
open the windows you want. And to make
those windows part of your program.
WITH TURBO EDITOR TOOLBOX YOU
CAN HAVE THE BEST OF ALL WORD
PROCESSORS IN YOUR WORD PRO-
CESSOR. You can make WordStar behave
like Multi-Mate. Support windows just like
Microsoft's® Word*" And do it as fast as
WordPerfect does it. Incorporate your new
"hybrids" into your programs to achieve
incredible control and power.
Turbo Editor Toolbox. It's the kind of tool
that almost everyone needs — and we're the
kind of company to give it to you at a reasona-
ble price, without any compromise on quality.
(We're so sure you'll be satisfied that we offer a
60-day money-back guarantee — something no
one else does.)
THE CRITICS' CHOICE
"Turbo Pascal has got 10 be the best value in Ian
guages on the market today — and Borland Interna-
tional, by delivering excellent products at reasona-
ble costs, is leading the software industry where it
has to go. Turbo Pascal is more than just a good
program at a low cost It's also a low-cost, well-
conceived programming language making it possi-
ble for lots of people to produce good programs."
Jerry Pournelle, BYTE
"This compiler, produced by Borland International,
is one of the best programming tools presently
available for the PC."
Michael Covington, PC Tech Journal
"Language deal of the century. Turbo Pascal."
Jell Duntemann, PC Magazine
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State-of-the art games that let you be player,
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have the Turbo Pascal source code. Which
means that you can play a game or create a
game, any time and any way you want
Borland's new Turbo GameWorks lets you
combine gamesmanship with craftsmanship.
Discover the secret techniques and moves used
by the Old Masters. Learn exactly how state-of-
the-art computer games are made — so you can
go off and make your own. Since you have the
source code, you can always change the game.
Or rig the game, if no one's looking.
Pure Magic. That's Turbo GameWorks. And part
of the "sourcery" — Turbo GameWorks is only
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only $47.50.
SHORT CUTS, SECRETS AND
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games. How to play them. How to modify
them. How to use the power of Turbo Pascal to
write new games.
You'll learn general problem analysis, how
to identify all possible moves, "rule of thumb"
strategies, procedures for testing strategies, and
ways to rate options. You'll also be introduced
to "top down" program design, the develop-
ment of basic algorithms, the use of constants
and data structures and ways to design short
cuts with incremental updating.
On top of all that, you'll have a lot of fun
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So go to play (and work) with Borland's
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It's an intriguing game. But you're not
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Whats New 37, 429
Ask BYTE 48
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Reader Service 479
Address all editorial correspondence to the Editor BYTE POB 372 Hancock. NH 03449 Unacceptable manuscripts will be returned if accompanied
by sufficient firsKlass postage Not responsible for lost manuscripts or photos Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of BVTE
Copyright © 1985 by McGraw-Hill Inc All rights reserved Trademark registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office where necessary
permission Is granted by the copyright owner for libraries and others registered with the Copyright Clearance Center ICCCI to photocopy any article
herein for the flat fee of SI 50 per copy of the article or any part thereof Correspondence and payment should be sent directly to the CCC 29 Congress
St Salem MA 01970 Soeclfv ISSN 0360-528081 SI 50 Cnnvine done fnrorher than nerennal or miemal reference ,nr wiihour .he nermis-
360
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
New Services
It is now 1 5 years since Murray Turoff in-
vented computer conferencing as a
renegade project in. of all places, the Of-
fice of Emergency Preparedness of the Ex-
ecutive Office of the President of the
United States. (See The Network Nation:
Human Communication Via Computer by Starr
R Hiltz and Murray Turoff. Addison-
Wesley. 1978. for details.) It is seven years
since Ward Christensen and Randy Suess
invented the electronic bulletin board.
Their article. "Hobbyist Computerized
Bulletin Board," in the November 1978
BYTE (page 1 50) describes how they de-
vised CBBS as a means of communica-
tions for members of their computer club
and as a source of material for the club's
newsletter.
Today it is clear that computer confer-
encing and electronic bulletin boards are
the means by which personal computer
users form a new kind of community,
united by shared interests rather than
geography. This month we examine com- -
puter conferencing in depth. We also ex-
tend our services to readers.
Many of you have written us about dif-
ficulties in getting program listings that go
with BYTE articles. Some listings appear
in the magazine, but lack of space
prevents us from printing all of every
listing in BYTE. The listings are available
for downloading from our three electronic
bulletin boards or from the BYTE Informa-
tion Exchange (BIX), but some of you don't
take part in telecommunications. Others
are outside the U.S. and face technical or
financial obstacles to participation.
We've been working hard to overcome
these problems and are at last ready to
announce some solutions. These include
availability of program listings on disk,
availability of computer conferencing and
on-line listings throughout Europe, and
free availability of listings on many bulletin
boards outside the U.S.
BYTE Listings on Disks
Starting December 9, program listings for
BYTE articles will be available in a great
variety of disk formats. The listings are text
files of source code and are to be used
Duplication Services, a subsidiary of Con-
trol Data Corporation, that will enable us
to offer disks containing each month's
listings for a cost to you of $5 for most
5!4-inch floppy disks and $6 for micro-
floppies, high-density 5!4-inch disks, and
single-density 8-inch CP/M disks. These
prices include postage in North America.
Shipping and handling add $1 to the cost
of orders from Europe and South America
and $2 to the cost of orders from Asia.
Africa, and Australia.
Which formats are available? Media
Duplication Services has agreed to
duplicate, at a cost permitting the prices
above, any soft-sectored format that we
can give them. We may need time to ar-
range the downloading of the listings to
some osbscure formats if we don't have
the target machine here at BYTE. (If you're
concerned about availability of your for-
mat, call us at (603) 924-9281 and see if
we have it. If we don't, we may arrange
to pay you a small fee for downloading
to your machine and sending us the
resulting master disk for your machine's
format.) We can't guarantee availability of
every format, but we'll make an effort to
provide any format requested. You will
find an order form on page 60 of this issue
if you wish to purchase listings on disk.
BYTECOM:
Conferencing in Europe
Jacob Palme, author of two articles in this
issue, is also the principal author of COM
and PortaCOM, two conferencing pro-
grams that run on a variety of systems.
COM antedates and influenced CoSy. the
software on which BIX is based. QZ. the
same Swedish company that developed
and sells COM and PortaCOM, also offers
time-sharing in Europe. QZ will be putting
BYTE program listings up and conducting
computer conferences on BYTE and BYTE-
inspired topics. Readers in Europe can
subscribe to BYTECOM by contacting QZ.
Stockholm University Computing Center.
Box 27322, S-102 54. Stockholm. Sweden,
telephone: 46 8 679280. To reach BYTE-
COM via telecommunications network,
you must first obtain a modem, establish
an account with your local telephone ad-
giro 184070-1 for the equivalent of 200
Swedish crowns (about S2 5). Hourly
connect-time charges at night for
BYTECOM will be the equivalent of $6.
Note that telecommunications charges
themselves are billed directly to the end
user by the local telephone administration.
Europe lacks the kind of billing to vendor
that is normal in the U.S. The telecommu-
nications charges by telephone administra-
tions vary from country to country but are
in many cases approximately $10 to SI 5
per hour in the evening. See page 60 for
further information on BYTECOM.
Listings on Bulletin Boards
Outside the United States
There's nothing quite like the interactive-
ness of computer conferencing, but if
using BYTECOM is difficult, you can also
obtain BYTE program listings free of
charge from electronic bulletin boards in
many countries. We owe thanks to the
many readers who responded to our re-
quest for bulletin boards outside the U.S.
to carry BYTE program listings so that all
readers have a means of obtaining them.
Page 60 contains a partial listing of these
bulletin boards. We're also making ar-
rangements with more bulletin boards and
will announce them in a future issue.
We hope these new services make BYTE
more useful and valuable to many of you.
Query for Interest
We have looked at Cauzin Systems' in-
teresting new Softstrip system. This system
encodes data in graphics patterns printed
on paper, and a special reader available
from Cauzin reads the data into a com-
puter's serial port. The Softstrip format
packs a lot of information into a small
space. We ran a test of a Softstrip on page
392 of our October issue, and the data
proved readable. The disadvantage of the
system is that you must purchase the
Cauzin reader for approximately $200 in
order to take advantage of the strips. As
a means of distributing program listings,
Softstrips would be an alternative to tele-
communications and disks rather than a
substitute for them. Please let us know
whether you would like us to use Softstrips
»l> ill America, 60 ( )xl(
Moonachie, NJ 07074
W i
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H.OPPY DISKS
THE GOLD STANDARD
inquiry 227
MICROBYTES
Ultre, Melville, NY, announced a laser-printing engine that produces output at a resolution
of 2400 dots per inch on photo film. Without a controller or case, the Ultre»Setter will cost
OEMs about $5000 in quantity.
IBM announced the Pageprinter, a 12-page-per-minute electrophotographic LED-array
printer priced at $7490. The Pageprinter can print text and graphics at a resolution up to
240 by 240 dots per inch.
Nanobytes
Former BYTE columnist Sol Libes has started a new magazine for hardware and software
developers. The bimonthly magazine is $20 per year; for information, contact Micro/Systems
\ournal. POB 1192, Mountainside, N) 07092. . Hitachi has developed a 2'/2-inch hard-case
floppy disk that works with a prototype drive from Suwa Seikosha The disk can hold up to
500K bytes (unformatted), recording on 200 tracks per inch; the drive requires only 2 watts
during read and write and weighs half as much as a 3 '/2-inch drive. . . . MicroPro an-
nounced release 2.0 of WordStar 2000; enhancements will include the ability to directly
read Lotus 1-2-3 and Symphony worksheet files, multiple-column printing, on-screen justifica-
tion, a document-history screen, and support for more than 200 printers. MicroPro also an-
nounced that WordStar 2000 will be available for the UNIX PC (running under AT&T's UNIX
System V) . . . . Texas Instruments is developing a 32-bit CMOS LISP processor chip under
contract to the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Roughly 10
times more complex than a 68000, the 40-MHz processor will directly execute a superset of
Common LISP with extensions like object-oriented programming and message passing. . . .
Waferscale Integration. Fremont, CA, has developed a CMOS 32-bit microprocessor slice
for use in standard-cell chips. The processor is rated at between 3 and 5 million instructions
per second Hitachi and Motorola expected to sample a CMOS version of the 68000
microprocessor by the end of 1985 ... SoftKlone Distributing. Tallahassee, FL, an-
nounced Mirror, a $50 telecommunications program it says is completely compatible with
Microstuf's Crosstalk XVI .... Oki Semiconductor is now shipping production quantities of
its 1-megabit CMOS ROMs. . . . Thoughtware Inc., Coconut Grove, FL, announced the
Jingle Disk, a Christmas card on a disk for $9.95. Holiday scenes are displayed while
Christmas carols are played. The program is available for the IBM PC (2 56K bytes), Apple II,
and Commodore 64 and 128. .. . Lotus Development Corp. unveiled Signal, a combined
software/hardware product that lets users in major cities receive stock quotes via FM side-
band radio signals and automatically enter the information into 1-2-3 or Symphony, The
cost is $595 plus subscription fees for available exchange services. Lotus also recalled and
replaced its initial shipment of Symphony version 1.1 after discovering a serious bug. . . .
Drexler Technology Corp. was granted two patents in October related to its wallet-size
optical-memory-card recording system. . . . General Transformation Corp., Berkeley, CA,
hopes to validate its Ada compilers for the IBM XT and AT early next year. The company
says the $1000 XT version will compile 1000 lines of source code per minute and the $1200
AT version will compile 2000 lines per minute. ... To avoid a court battle with Apple,
Digital Research agreed to change its GEM programs (currently available on the IBM PC
and Atari ST) so they will look less like Apple's Macintosh software. . . . Pacific Bell is now
offering public switched-digital service to customers in the San Francisco and Los Angeles
areas, allowing direct data transmission within those areas at up to 56,000 bits per second.
Cost for the measured service starts at $197 per month. . . . Like AT&T and Hitachi,
Toshiba has begun sampling its 1-megabit DRAMs . . . Intel introduced a one-time-
programmable 2 56K-bit EPROM that can be programmed in less than 4 seconds using a
new Quick-Pulse programming algorithm .... Gould AMI, Santa Clara, CA, announced that
two chips— its S3 52 1 3 modem chip and S352I2A filter chip— will perform all signal process-
ing necessary for a Bell 212A-compatible 1200-bps modem. . . . Microsoft is shipping the
XENIX System V operating system— a version of UNIX System V for the 80286— to
OEMs . . MicroRIM's R:base 5000 database-manager program will be marketed by
Microsoft outside North America and the Far East .... Honeywell introduced the XP and
AP, two new personal computers compatible with the IBM XT and AT. . . . Tiac Manufac-
turing announced the PC-320, a $995 signal-processing board for the IBM PC, XT, or AT,
using a Texas Instruments 20-MHz TMS320IO single-chip DSP (digital signal processor). . . .
Chips and Technologies, Milpitas, CA, announced a 5-chip set that replaces 63 chips on
IBM AT-compatible motherboards. The PC AT-compatible CHIPSet is priced at $72.50 in
quantity. Another product— the 4-chip Enhanced Graphics CHIPSet— allows EGA-compatible
boards to be built with 32 chips instead of the previously required 76.
10 BYTE- DECEMBER I98S
H
Vou'reon the road.
t ifty five miles an hour and you're
still three hours from Atlanta. On the
seat nexl to you is the little miracle
the trip worthwhile
it s an bpson Geneva. A lull blowi
personal computer that runs on
batteries and (its in a briefcase Yen
can't live without it.
You've gol sales people to beat
up, cheer up. and pump up. So
before you hit the road, you gol
sales data from the mainframe al
headquarters and competitive
information from the IBM IV in
the regional office with Geneva's
optional modem.
With ( Geneva's powerful Portable
Calc software, you analyze, or
ganize, and print the data with the
optional printer. Now you're ready
to give them the good word. Or
the bad news.
Ihe I pson Geneva will helpyoui
I
troops gel ready to take Atlanta,
Arid it iusl might lake you a lot further
With a massive software library
and a complete line o1 system pe
ripherals the I pson Geneva PX-8™
portable computet can handle
sales management, or any othei job
you take on. And foi less than $1000.
I or more information, call 800 421
5426or213 539 9140 in California.
EPSON Geneva
First new 114-inch cartridge since 1971
If you don't have data worth preserving, then
the reasons for buying Cartrex's new 1/4-inch,
high performance, virtually error-free tape
cartridge won't mean anything
But, if you are one of the many 1/4-inch tape cartridge
users that assume 3M's cartridges just have to be "good
enough" for today's high performance tape drives, read these
simple facts to understand why that isn't true anymore.
Pilots have a saying,
"There are those who
have made a wheels-
up landing — and
those who will."
You can applv this
expression to those ^
who have lost data and
those who will. Unfortu-
nately, data loss isn't al
ways because users haven't
backed-up their hard disk.
Sometimes it's because their 1/4-
inch tape cartridge, where they back
up their hard disk, developed hard er-
rors — those insidious errors that tend
to increase over time. That's why Car-
trex has developed a 1/4-inch data car-
tridge for today's high performance
drives that virtually eliminates errors.
Why a new cartridge
When 3M announced its cartridge
in 1971, it was designed for a low capac-
ity tape drive with less than 3 mega-
bytes — 2.88 to be exact. The tape was
low in density — 1600 bits per inch with
only 4 tracks and 300 feet of tape.
The tolerances required for the
tape drives of the early 1970's were fine
for then, but today's tape drives re-
quire much tighter tolerance. Today's
tape cartridges must work with drives
that have 9 or more tracks and bit den-
sities as high as 12,000 bits per inch on
600 feet of tape. That means capacity
increases of 2,000 percent packed into
the same cartridge.
The reasons that yesterday's car-
tridge technology simply won't work
properly in today's high capacity
drives is inherent in the cartridge de-
sign.
12 BYTE- DECEMBER 1985
The
new Cartrex U4-inch
tape cartridge is the first new
tape cartridge design in almost a
decade and a half. Tape drive manufactur-
ers now have a new cartridge technology which allows them
to advance beyond this previous artificial barrier.
With the significant increases in
capacity, the three culprits that make
cartridge tolerances so important are
fluctuating tape tension, redeposit
nodules, and instantaneous speed var-
iations (or ISV).
Tape Tension
Any child who has played with a
magnet understands that as the mag-
net is separated from metal, the mag-
net's ability to work is decreased. So
it's no surprise to find
out that the closer the
tape drive head is to the
tape, the better the
reading. This closeness
is particularly impor-
tant when the embed-
ded iron filings get
packed tighter in to-
day's high density tape.
It's also important
with the increase in the
^^^^"^^™ number of tracks. After
all, you wouldn't want the head to be
reading an adjacent track any more
than you'd want it reading more than
one magnetic representation of a bit.
Unfortunately, tape tension his-
torically has not been constant. As the
tape unwound, the tension increased.
What's important is both the amount
and range of tension. A fluctuating in-
crease or decrease in tension is as un-
acceptable as low tension is in the first
place. As the accompanying graphs
7711' Cartrex cartridge design (upper left) uses the N2 principle which creates head-to-tape tension by
applying a mechanical differential at the rear pulley behveen a stiff transport belt and a stiff tensioning
belt indicated in green and yellow in the color schematic (upper right).
The conventional .7Af design applies drag at the rear pulley to create tension, which creates heat, and
limits future speeds much above 90 inches per second.
Good head-to-tape tension ensures the highest
probability of reliably capturing data. Fluctuating
tape tension allows data loss due to head-to-tape
separation and smearing redeposit nodules across
the tape head. The Cartrex cartridge, compared to
the conventional design, creates constant and
higher tension.
show, the Cartrex cartridge has higher
tension and flatter profile than the 3M
cartridge. This means more reliable
data across the entire tape.
Redeposit Nodules
Another reason to keep constant
tension is to avoid "redeposit nodules"
from smearing across your tape drive's
head. What are redeposit nodules?
They are the insidious flakes of tape
media that break off from the edges of
the tape and get dragged up to the
edge of the tape head. If the tension is
low, or becomes low when the tape
starts or reverses, the flakes come up
over the edge, get smeared over the
head, and reduce its ability to read the
data.
Even worse, however, is that
these redeposit nodules are dragged
along the surface of the tape and get
embedded and packed over time.
When your drive tries to read the data,
the redeposit nodules act as a tent pole
holding up the tape away from the
head. As a result, even the best error-
recognition algorithm can only tell you
one thing — you've lost the data.
You might be wondering what
causes the flaking in the first place.
Again, it is cartridge design. The basic
design uses a tape guide, shown in the
accompanying illustration. The prob-
lem with this approach, is that it pre-
supposes that the tape will always run
parallel to the top and bottom caps of
the tape guides. At the low speeds of
30 inches per second typical of when
the 3M cartridge was designed, it was
less of a problem. But at today's speeds
of 90 inches per second and more, the
tape wanders. When it presses against
the top of the tape guide, the tape's
edge pressure builds. Not only does
media flake off, but you lose data due
to the "coining" or "scalloping" effect.
Cartrex eliminated the cause of the
tape coining or scalloping by develop-
ing a barrel-shaped roller placed prior
to the tape guide. The laws of physics
show that by riding on a rounded bar-
rel, the tape will always seek the mid-
dle, reducing the tape edge pressure.
This seemingly simple addition causes
the tape to always enter the tape guide
with zero edge pressure. In this way,
the possibility of media flaking off and
creating redeposit nodules is virtually
eliminated.
Instantaneous Speed Variation (ISV)
Instantaneous speed variations is
exactly what it sounds like — small, in-
stantaneous changes in tape speed as
it crosses the tape head. At slow tape
You can compare the Cartrex design on top with
the conventional 3M design (lower left) and DEI, a
3M licensee (lower right). The omission of "edge
tension reduction guides" (indicated in dark blue
on the color schematic) on either the 3M or DEI
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DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 13
LETTERS
More Travesty
Murray Lesser's "Travesty Revisited" (July,
page 163) is the second BYTE article to
present a compiled-language version of
Brian Hayes's random text generator (the
first was "A Travesty Generator for Micros"
by Hugh Kenner and Joseph O'Rourke.
November 1984. page 129). If the subject
is really that interesting, an interpreted
BASIC generator would make it available
to a larger number of casual programmers.
Lesser's program is too loopy to run well
in an interpeted language, but a usably
fast version could be derived from his
listing if lines 86 through 106 were re-
placed with those shown in listing 1.
My code embodies a small variation on
the Hayes algorithm but is functionally
equivalent to it. It requires a BASIC inter-
preter that allows long string variables, and
LETTER(k) should be dimensioned to 2 5 5 ,
which is large enough to handle input files
of 10,000 characters or so as long as the
scan order is greater than 2.
A generator using this stragegy and writ-
ten in MS-BASIC (1.0) on a Macintosh runs
a 1000-character in/out benchmark in 90
seconds. This compares well enough with
the 130 seconds reported by Kenner and
O'Rourke for the same test on a Heath
H-89 with the original form of their Pascal
generator. This is 5 to 10 times faster
(depending on scan order and input-file
size) than an interpreted generator using
the Hayes algorithm as given.
Travesties become tiresome very quickly,
but the method itself can lead to valuable
insights into written language if one has
the patience to follow up some of its for-
mal results. For example, the generator
allows the computation of several con-
stants that measure aspects of the text in
the input file. The easiest of these to han-
dle is linear convergence, which is given
by (E(l/T))/C. where T is the number of
matches to each gram and C is the total
number of output characters. Linear con-
vergence measures the tendency of the
source text to reproduce itself through the
generator. At high scan orders (greater
than the number of characters in the
longest recurring string in the text) its
value is 1, and for lower orders, less than
I. It can be approximated very well by
adding the function T = T+ 1/LETTER(0)
as the second line under the WHILE state-
ment above, and then dividing T by the
total number of output characters at the
end of the run. If the convergences
measured for orders 3 through 8 are
plotted and the curves compared for dif-
ferent kinds of text and for different
authors, some very interesting things sug-
gest themselves. It is fascinating to realize
that so nebulous a quality as "literary
style" can be formally measured, and that
there is a numerical aspect to the com-
parative study of literature.
Robert Green
Annapolis. MD
Murray Lesser replies:
In response to Mr. Green's letter, I offer
a few comments. First, the program as
published does an order-4 verse scan of
'Jabberwocky'' (1013 bytes) with 1000
bytes output in 33 seconds on my IBM
PC. Time is by stopwatch, files are on
memory-mapped virtual disk.
Second, the intent was to make mini-
mum changes to the program structure
established in the original article by Ken-
ner and O'Rourke. The purpose of the
piece was to show the effect of a more
Listing 1: Reader Green's modification to TRAVPC1.BAS.
LET l = INSTR(STRING, PATTERN)
'Scan for first match
LET LETTER(0) =
'Initialize match count
WHILE l>0 AND l< =LEN(STRING)- N.PAT
'Set loop conditions
LET LETTER(O) = LETTER(O) + 1
'Increment match count
LET LETTER(LETTER(0)) = l
'Record match location
LET I = INSTR(I + 1,STRING,PATTERN)
'Scan for next match
WEND
'Repeat
LET L = INT(LETTER(0)*RND) + 1
'1 < random mteger< = match count
LET OUTCHAR = MID$(STRING,LETTER(L)
+ N.PAT.1) 'Record selected letter
suitable language, not to monkey with the
algorithm.
A major performance improvement for
very long input files lover 5K bytes) is to
eliminate the repeated input string con-
catenation with every character ac-
cepted. This can be done with a couple
of assembly-language subroutines to
write the entire input string into string
space only once, albeit one character at
a time. I leave this as an exercise for the
interested reader.
If the technique is to be used for
anything other than a stunt, the program
should be restructured in a major way.
For example, if one were to implement
Mr. Green's suggestion of using it to com-
pare "literary style,'' the program should
run all the desired outputs from a single
reading of the input, gather the ap-
propriate statistics, and then move on to
the next input file.
Finally. I wouldn't use an interpreted
language for anything. In addition to the
performance improvement, it is much
easier to write and debug long programs
for a compiler than it is for an interpreter.
Try it: you'll like it.
Hope and Pascal Recursion
I would like to respond to Roger Bailey's
article A Hope Tutorial" (August, page
23 5). In comparing Pascal with Hope on
the mult function, he only showed an ex-
ample of writing the function in Pascal
using iteration. It is possible to write the
function in Pascal using recursion (as
shown in listing 2). This method is not the
method normally taught to students, since
recursion is not always the best route to
follow. Except for that one example, I think
[continued)
LETTERS POLICY: To be considered for publica-
tion, a letter must be typed double-spaced on one
side oj the paper and must include your name and
address. Comments and ideas should be expressed as
clearly and concisely as possible. Listings and tables
may be printed along with a letter if they are short
and legible.
Because BYTE receives hundreds of letters each
month, not all of them can be published. Letters will
not be returned to authors. Generally, it takes four
months from the time BYTE receives a letter until
it is published.
14 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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LETTERS
Listing 2: A recursive mult junction
written in Pascal.
01
program test (Input,
output);
02
03
var
04
x,y, num : Integer;
05
06 function mult (x,y :ir
teger)
:integer;
07
08
begin
09
if y = then
10
mult : =
11
else
12
mult : = mult
x,y- 1) + x
13 end;
14
begin
15
repeat
16
read (x,y);
17
num ; = mult (x,y);
18
writeln (' num
is ', num : 3);
19
until num =
20
end.
this was an excellent presentation of
Hope. Since I have no way of testing out
the language, I can only say that Hope ap-
pears to be an easy language to under-
stand.
Charlene Filz
Santa Clara, CA
Roger Bailey replies:
Charlene Filz is certainly correct in
stating that the mult function may be
written recursively in Pascal. My exam-
ple using a loop was not a deliberate mis-
representation of Pascal but an attempt
to compare a ' traditional ' ' iterative pro-
gram with Hope's recursive approach. In
the former, a sequence of data values
(such as the successive values of prod in
the example) is ordered in time and must
be generated in that order; in Hope, a
sequence of values is ordered only in
space and may be generated in any
order. This is shown most clearly in the
Pascal and Hope versions of the pro-
grams for printing a sequence of natural
numbers, and it is the property of Hope
that makes it so suitable for parallel
machines such as ALICE.
As Ms. Filz correctly states, the recur-
sive method is not normally taught to
students, which is very unfortunate.
Recursion is widely regarded by practic-
ing programmers as ' inefficient' or even
"unnatural.'' yet neither of these
criticisms bears up to examination. The
[continued)
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LETTERS
first goal of all programming is to pro-
duce programs that are demonstrably
correct. What use is the program that is
highly optimized yet gives unreliable
results or crashes unpredictably?
Clarity and conciseness are our
greatest aids to correct programming and
recursion provides both. Compare Ms.
Filz's recursive mult with my iterative ver-
sion: It consists of only two statements,
has no variables, and more importantly,
no concept of states because no values
get changed when it's evaluated. It can
be seen to be correct without testing or
hand-simulation, whereas the iterative
program needs much more careful ex-
amination before we can be sure it will
work correctly.
Except in rare circumstances, I would
always favor a recursive Pascal program
over the equivalent iterative one. Recur-
sive procedures are handled as efficiently
in Pascal as nonrecursive ones. As for the
charge that recursion is unnatural, I
would simply remark that all program-
ming languages are unnatural until
they've been learned. In the Department
of Computing at Imperial College, we
teach recursion before any of Pascal's
loop constructs, and our students regard
it as completely natural. To those of your
readers like Ms. Filz who like the style of
Hope but have no way of testing it, I
should mention that it's even possible to
write Pascal programs that manipulate
large data structures in a completely
functional style.
Okay, Blame the Computer
. . . Sometimes
It was interesting to read Michael Russell's
letter ("Don't Blame the Computer,"
August, page 14). His examples of what
some people called "computer mistakes-
poorly scheduled lunch periods and a
$6539.97 phone bill— are indeed, as he
points out, attributable to human error.
I get the impression from his letter, how-
ever, that he is unaware of the fact that
true machine-based errors are very
common.
Over the eleven years in which I have
been working with computers, it seems
like I have encountered a roughly equal
number of machine-based and human-
based computer errors.
A bug in software, an obvious design
flaw in hardware, or an error in operations
are all human-based errors, of course.
Machine-based errors occur when, for ex-
ample, a semiconductor component fails
(for no apparent reason), when a
{continued)
18 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 189
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 19
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VERSARECEIVABLES T " is a complete menu-driven accounts receivable, invoicing, and
monthly statement-generating system. It keeps track of all information related to who
owes you or your company money, and can provide automatic billing for past due ac-
counts. Versa Receivables** prints all necessary statements, invoices, and summary
reports and can be linked with VERSALEDGER IP* and VERSA INVENTORY 7 ".
VERSAPAYABLES™ $99.95
VERSAPAYABLES*" is designed to keep track of current and aged payables, keeping you
in touch with all information regarding how much money your company owes, and to
whom. VERSA PAYABLES™ maintains a complete record on each vendor, prints checks,
check registers, vouchers, transaction reports, aged payables reports, vendor reports,
and more. With VERS A Payables™, you can even let your computer automatically select
which vouchers are to be paid.
VERSAPAYROLL™ $99.95
VERSA PAYROLL™ is a powerful and sophisticated, but easy to use payroll system that
keeps track of all government -required payroll information. Complete employee records
are maintained, and all necessary payroll calculations are performed automatically, with
totals displayed on screen for operator approval. A payroll can be run totally, automati-
cally, or the operator can intervene to prevent a check from being printed, or to alter
information on it. If desired, totals may be posted to the VERSALEDGER II*" system.
VERSAlNVENTORY™ $99.95
VersaInventory™ is a complete inventory control system that gives you instant access
to data on any item. VERSA INVENTORY™ keeps track of all information related to what
items are in stock, out of stock, on backorder, etc., stores sales and pricing data, alerts
you when an item falls below a preset reorder point, and allows you to enter and print
invoices directly or to link with the VERSA RECEIVABLES™ system. VERSA INVENTORY™ prints
all needed inventory listings, reports of items below reorder point, inventory value re-
ports, period and year to-date sales reports, price lists, inventory checklists, etc.
iCQMPUTRQMCSi
50 N. PASCACK ROAD, SPRING VALLEY, NY. 10977
VersaLedger ir $149.95
Versa Ledger II™ is a complete accounting system that grows as your busines
grows. VersaLedger ir" can be used as a simple personal checkbook register
expanded to a small business bookkeeping system or developed into a larg
corporate general ledger system without any additional software.
• VersaLedger ir" gives you almost unlimited storage capacity
(300 to 10,000 entries per month, depending on the system),
• stores all check and general ledger information forever,
• prints tractor-feed checks,
• handles multiple checkbooks and general ledgers,
• prints 17 customized accounting reports including check registers,
balance sheets, income statements, transaction reports, account
listings, etc.
VersaLedger IT" comes with a professionally-written 160 page manual de
signed for first-time users. The VersaLedger II™ manual will help you becomi
quickly familiar with VersaLedger 11™, using complete sample data file
supplied on diskette and more than 50 pages of sample printouts.
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
Every VERSABUSINESS™ module is guaranteed to outperform all other competitive systems,
and at a fraction ot their cost. !f you are not satisfied with any VERSABUSINESS™ module, you
may return it within 30 days for a refund. Manuals for any VERSABUSINESS™ module may be
purchased for $25 each, credited toward a later purchase of that module
All CP/M-based Computers must be equipped with Microsoft BASIC
(MBAS1C or BASIC-80)
To Order:
Write or call Toll-free (800) 431-2818
(N.Y.S. residents call 914-425-1535)
* add $3 for shipping in UPS areas * add $5 to CANADA or MEXICO
* add $4 for COD. or non-UPS areas _ , * add proper postage elsewhere
Inquiry 159 ^^^
DEALER INQUIRIES WELCOME
All prices and specifications subject to change / Delivery subject to availability.
LETTERS
mechanical component (e.g.. a disk-drive
head assembly) works itself out of align-
ment, when a bad spot appears on a
magnetic recording surface (within its
rated lifetime), when a normally reliable
data-transmission link garbles a message,
when oxide builds up on a mechanical
keyboard switch causing it to stop work-
ing, when a potentiometer (e.g., in a joy-
stick) wears out prematurely, when sup-
posedly nonvolatile (battery backed-up)
memories get shuffled, when metal or
plastic fatigue causes a part in tension to
fail (various printer components are prone
to this one), and even (remember this?)
when a card reader chews up a punched
card because of a frayed edge created by
prior passes through the reader.
Some people will likely object to this list
on the basis that all these errors have
some cause external to the computer
itself. Some possibilities are: an error
made during manufacture, a cosmic ray
striking an integrated circuit, static elec-
tricity, or an oversight in the design.
But, to be fair, realize that human errors
have their external causes as well. A pro-
grammer may be distracted by a phone
call and return to his terminal with his
thought pattern disturbed; he may then
unknowingly introduce a bug into the pro-
gram. A looming deadline may mean that
prerelease testing is cut short. Many other
examples (some would say "excuses") can
be found.
Here 1 have been making the distinction
between machine-based error and human
error. Mr. Russell, however, simply refers
to "computer errors." Since most users
(understandably) view the computer as an
undifferentiated entity separate from
themselves, it may be more appropriate
to draw the distinction between computer
error and user error.
It seems to me the computer did make
a mistake in printing the $6539.97 phone
bill. So what if the programmer pro-
grammed the fault into the software? The
fact that the computer error could have
been prevented by a programmer at some
point in the development of the system
does not change the fact that the com-
puter made the mistake.
Of course, a computer is only a tool. If
the operator or user enters wrong data or
gives faulty commands, the direct result
is his mistake (user error).
If someone makes a mistake while creat-
ing a program, the result is a faulty pro-
gram, or in a larger sense, a flawed com-
puter. When that program is later ex-
ecuted, any wrong answers from correct
(continued)
The most flexible
printeivsharing device
you can buy is from
BayTech - -
>m puter
printers
^combination
Or any COM '
in .between
Introducing the new Model 528DB multiport controller. It will
let eight users automatically share one printer, or in multiple
printer applications, let users code-select a specific printer
or contend for the first available printer. Flexible, user-
selectable features include: the number of printers versus
the number of computers, printer select code, CTS DTR or
XON-XOFF handshaking, operating mode, form-feed mode,
header-page message, disconnect time-out, and baud
rates. To set up, simply connect the multiport between
your computers and printers. It interfaces easily with any
RS-232C serial device. Model 528DB with 9 ports. S659.
Larger models also available.
^o* x A e\ s
BAY TECHNICAL ASSOCIATES, INC.
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800-523-2702
Highway 603, P.O. Box 387, Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi 39520
Phone: 601-467-8231 Telex: 910-333-1618 (BAYTECH)
Inquiry 33
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 23
LETTERS
user input can rightly be called computer
errors. It is interesting to note that a pro-
gram could have several bugs (in that it
did not correctly meet the design objec-
tives) and never generate any errors
(where the conditions to trigger the errors
never occur in practice).
Why do we wish to ascribe to computers
the inability to err? If our child hits a
baseball through a window we are quite
ready to blame him for it, not ourselves
for failing to ensure that "not hitting the
window" had a sufficiently high priority in
his "operating system."
In summary, my point is this: Computers
are prone to errors, just as humans are.
This is true regardless of whether you use
the narrow definition of a machine error
or the broader (and I feel fairer) concept
of the computer system as a whole.
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The difference, of course, is that a com-
puter generates fewer errors for a given
amount of work produced and the prob-
ability of any given error being made is
much less for a computer than it is for a
human.
TERRY ). DEVEAU
Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada
And Now, Adware
In response to the letter by Mr. Tate
("Don't Sell Software. Sell Ad Space,"
August, page 26) regarding the selling of
advertising space in entertainment soft-
ware: Wow! What a great idea. Adware
(that's my term for it) could resurrect the
failing home computer industry
Let's face it, most home computers are
used for entertainment; however, the
general public is not usually willing to
spend S30 to SI 00 for a game. In general
I feel that this attitude applies to all types
of home entertainment. Look at how suc-
cessful television has become simply
because you don't have to pay for it to en-
joy it (unless you want cable or pay TV,
but even that is relatively inexpensive).
With Adware you would still have to in-
cur the cost of downloading from the tele-
phone. This same reason also accounts for
the to-date unsuccessful home videotex
systems.
Mr. Tate mentions the advantages of Ad-
ware but fails to mention the virtues of the
Freeware concept and what Adware could
bring to it. I personally do not agree with
the idea of selling copy-protected enter-
tainment software commercially. Com-
puters are very good at copying software,
and so this fact should be put to good use.
Freeware (the free distribution of software
by encouraging copying) offers the users
a better and more dynamic product. For ex-
ample. I have a Freeware product that I
continue to update as improvements and
additions are implemented. When a new
release is ready I simply make it available
on the Freeware market. You cannot do
this economically with a similar commer-
cial product without covering your ex-
penses by raising the retail price. With Ad-
ware you could make it a policy to release
a new version every few months to insure
a dynamic advertising medium.
At present the Freeware distribution net-
work is not firmly established, but if the
amount of Freeware and the demand for
it grew large enough I am sure that regular
channels would establish themselves
quickly so that everyone could have
almost immediate access to the updates.
Another benefit of this concept would be
{continued)
24 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 56 for End-Users. Inquiry 57 for DEALERS ONLY.
Princeton SR- 1 2 and
Sigma Designs Color 400
"The Ultimate in Graphics
Resolution and Performance?..
SR-12 and Color 400. A brifliant com-
bination for super-high resolution
graphics and a crisp character display
For a brighter, sharper
display with your IBM
PC, XT, or AT, here's a
team that can't be beat.
The SR-12 super-high
resolution RGB monitor
from Princeton Graphic
Systems and Color 400,
the advanced color
graphics adapter card
from Sigma Designs.
A Revolution in
Resolution. Begin by
snapping the Color 400 into
your PC. Without any soft-
ware modification, text suddenly
becomes readable. Graphics turn
sharper and cleaner. Jagged edges
smooth out, and annoying flicker
fades away. Color 400
automatically doubles
the number of lines on
standard line software.
It allows true high
resolution display of
Lotus 1-2-3 and Symphony
^^- charts, graphics from Dr. Halo,
mimma^u CadPlan - Lumena 40 °. and
4Q | | » [ others. Also, create dazzling
■^J| ^Hr business charts in 1 6 vibrant
™ ^^ ^^ colors with Paintbrush 400,
included with the card. Enjoy fully formed,
monochrome quality characters in text mode. For
word processing, spreadsheet, CAD/CAM, or pro-
PC Products June 198S
fessional design applications, Color 400 is the
answer to your graphic needs.
Turn on SR-1 2 for the impressive
results. The SR-12
displays your Color 400 im-
age with unmatched clarity
and brilliant color. Because
the SR-12 combines a
.31 mm dot pitch tube and a
non-glare screen with an
incredible 640 x 400 non-
interlaced resolution, you
get a flickerless image
that's as crisp and clean as
a personal computer can
produce.
See how impressive this state-
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PC system. Visit your local retailer
today and ask about this new color
graphics team. Princeton Graphic
Systems' SR-12 and Sigma Designs'
Color 400. An unmatched, brilliant
combination.
Color 400
L==r DESIGNS
SIGMA DESIGNS, INC., 2023 OToole Avenue, San Jose, CA 95131
(408)943-9480 Telex: 171240
P RINCETON
GRAPH
AN INTELLIOE
I C
SYSTEMS
COMPANY
Princeton Graphic Systems, 601 Ewing Street, Bldg. A, Princeton, N.J. 08540
(609) 683-1660, Telex: 821402 PGS PRIN, (800) 221-1490 Ext. 1204
Graphic Screens courtesy Mouse Systems. Inc. and Forthright Systems, Inc.
IBM PC, PC XT, and PC AT are registered trademarks of International Business Machines, Inc.
inquiry 289
DECEMBER
iYTE 25
LETTERS
to ensure the survival of the best games.
These will get the best advertisers, ensur-
ing their survival and offering you and me
the best quality entertainment from these
marvelous little machines.
So how about it? Is it time for another
revolution in the home computer game
market?
Wesley Steiner
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
A Heath Timeline
I enjoyed your list of microcomputer mile-
stones in the tenth anniversary issue (see
"A Microcomputing Timeline" by Gregg
Williams and Mark Welch. September,
page 198). However, I must add my voice
to the probable hundreds of others who
will be pointing out that one pioneer in
the field was entirely ignored. Namely, the
Heath Company. Following is a list of a
number of events unique to the Heath
contribution to microcomputing:
August 1977: The H-8 was introduced.
8080 microprocessor. Octal front-panel
keypad. Bus-type architecture. The first
microcomputer kit that an average person
could expect to successfully build and use.
Still in daily use and supported by several
third-party vendors.
August 1977: Benton Harbor BASIC. High-
level language and quasi-operating system
for H-8. Operated with the ultrareliable
Heath cassette interface (1200 bps, van-
ishingly small error rate).
October 1978: H-19 introduced. At the
time, the H-19 was one of the lowest-cost
intelligent terminals available. Used a Z80
microprocessor. All commercial CP/M soft-
ware eventually included H-19 control
codes in their installation protocols. Still
in daily use. For a time, the H-19 led the
market in terminal sales.
)une 1979: The H-19 terminal was up-
graded with a Z80 computer card and
became the H-88. Still used the 1200-bps
cassette interface. Shortly after this, disk-
drive peripherals were offered for the H-8
and H-88 (which then became the H-89).
Benton Harbor BASIC was upgraded to
Extended Benton Harbor BASIC which in-
cluded disk file functions and for a short
while was Heath's disk operating system.
(Microsoft BASIC was also a lan-
guage/operating system when first
introduced.)
October 1980: H-DOS was introduced.
Predated MS-DOS in the use of modular
device drivers for peripherals. This system
was proprietary and failed in competition
with CP/M, though many felt it to be a
superior operating system. It has its own
ZCPR-like add-ons and is supposed to be
available in version 3.0 "real soon now."
In daily use and supported by several
third-party vendors.
December 1982: The H-100 series intro-
duced. This model was marketed earlier
by Zenith Data Systems as the Z-100 series.
A dual-processor machine (one of the
first), it included an 8085 for handling 8-bit
CP/M programs and an 8088 for MS-DOS
and CP/M-86 capability. Included five
S-100 slots for expansion. One of the first
to conform to IEEE S-100 standards as
several Heath engineers were appointed
to the committee.
All of these products are (were) available
{continued)
■
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26 B YTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 301
A few smart reasons
to buy our smart modem :
Features
Ven-Tel
1200 PLUS
Hayes
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Compatible with "AT" command set
Can be used with CROSSTALK-XVI or Smartcom II software
Regulated DC power pack for cool, reliable operation
Eight indicator lights to display modem status
Speaker to monitor call progress
Attractive, compact aluminum case
Two built-in phone connectors
Compatible with The Source and Dow Jones News Retrieval
Unattended remote test capability
Phone cable included
Availability
Price
The Ven-Tel 1200 PLUS offers high speed,
reliable telecommunications for your per-
sonal computer or terminal. Whether you
use information services or transfer data
from computer to computer, the Ven-Tel 1200
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at leading computer dealers and distribu-
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Also from Ven-Tel: internal modems for the
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Crosstalk is a trademark of Microstuf ; Hayes and Smartcom II are trademarks of Hayes Microcomputer Products.
Inquiry 367
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 27
YOU CAM'T GET
A GOOD FEEL
FOR A
SOFTWARE
PACKAGE
FROM AM AD.
28 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
If you're searching
through the ads in this
magazine for the
"right" software pack-
age, good luck
Let'5 say you're looking for a
data base manager. You read a
dozen ads. Each one offers its
list of features. Each one talks
about the ideal combination of
power and ease of use. And
each one promises to "solve
your problems", "answer your
needs", or both.
Don't Believe Anybody
We could make the same claims
for DATAEA5E. Even before
Release 2.5, tens of thousands
of users made DATAEA5E the
corporate data base standard.
We could tell you that they
found DATAEA5E to be an invalu-
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its fully relational capabilities, full
screen editor and unique combi-
nation of menus and com-
mands. But don't believe us.
More than 100 reviewers from
major publications agree with
our productivity claims. Data
Decisions called DATAEA5E "per-
haps the most effective blend of
ease-of-use and performance
available for PC users to date."
But don't believe the reviewers.
Application developers, MI5/DP/
IC managers, and all kinds of
other users from Fortune 1000
companies throughout the
country have reached strikingly
similar conclusions. A user at
General Instruments reports
that "those same factors that
make DATAEA5E preferable for
non-programmers — ease of
use and speed of development
— make it the program of
choice for many technical types,
too." But don't even believe
other users.
nobody Knows what you know.
Even if all these people are
absolutely right about
DATAEA5E, does that mean it's
the right product for you?
The best way to know if
DATAEA5E fits your needs is to
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Productivity takes more
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It takes a good company, too.
Buying a software package is
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upgrades, special corporate and
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The advances in DATAEA5E's
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Don't like samples? Then just call us. We'd
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800-243-5123
•1983 Software Solutions, Inc.
Trademarks are of their respective companies.
Scandinavia Switzerland, France United Kingdom West Germany, Austria
West Soft A/5, Alesund, Norway, (47) 71-41 141 Softsource, 5&A 1222 Vesenaz, Switzerland, 022-3518-55 Sapphire Systems, Essex, 01 554-0582 M&T Software Verlag, Munich; 089-4615-0
Inquiry 334
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 29
Inquiry 51
OUR PLUG-IN CARD
GIVES YOU PLUG-IN
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PC00488 allows your IBM
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instruments.
With PCOO 488, yoTJcan:
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cec
Capital Equipment Corporation
10 Evergreen Avenue
Burlington, MA 01803
Call today (61 7) 273-1818
Turbo Pascal is a trademark ol Borland I nternational
LETTERS
both as kits and preassembled units. The
Heath Company is now a unit of the Zenith
Corporation and its assembled computer
products are sold under the Zenith Data
Systems name.
Heath also pioneered in the larger sys-
tem arena when it introduced the H-ll,
which was a Digital Equipment Corpora-
tion minicomputer in kit form. It was too
expensive to compete in the personal
computer market; nonetheless, it was of-
fered and supported for several years.
Software was never readily available to the
average person.
Heath and Zenith computer owners are
supported by a large network of third-
party vendors of software and peripherals.
At least two commercial newsletters and
one commercial magazine are dedicated
to the brand. There is also the inimitable
Heath Users' Group with about 2 5,000
members worldwide. Its monthly journal,
REMark. and software library are, in my
opinion, unmatched. You may also find the
very active HUG-SIG on CompuServe of
interest. (One has to be a HUG member
to log on the SIG.) Numerous local groups
such as our Tallahassee Heath Users'
Group (Tally-HUG) are available.
To sum up, the Heath computer user
community has been a cornerstone of the
personal computer movement from early
on and deserved a prominent listing in a
compilation of historical microcomputer
events.
Welbrey A. Hill
Tallahassee, FL
Declarative Feedback
The August issue had as its theme declara-
tive languages, hailed as the next step for-
ward for programming. One of the most
prominent of the languages featured was
Hope, two articles and a column being
devoted at least in part to it (see "Program
Transformation" by John Darlington on
page 201. "A Hope Tutorial" by Roger
Bailey on page 235, and "BYTE U.K.:
Declarative Update" by Dick Pountain on
page 341). There is a point I wish to make
about the way source code is presented
to the programmer in Hope, and maybe
some other languages.
The use of symbols instead of plain
English used to be a thing of the past, an
evil caused by a lack of memory and pro-
cessing power. Now that there is not as
much of a limitation in processing power,
there is no excuse for these symbols be-
ing used any more than for a modern in-
terpreter giving error numbers instead of
proper messages.
[continued)
30 BYTE- DECEMBER
Inquiry 212
PC Paintbrush:
Because life is too short for
monochrome pie charts.
Fun
is the best thing
to have.
With PC Paintbrush, you can add color, flair,
dimension and creativity to a chart, a pre-
sentation, or an otherwise dull day. From
charts and graphs to serious computer art,
our newest generation 3.0 PC Paintbrush
will cheer you on with features no other
graphics package can match.
Best of all, ifs easy to use. tou don't have
to learn up to sixty commands, like you do
with some products. If you can understand
icons as simple as scissors, paintbrush,
spray can and paint roller, you're ready to
start using PC Paintbrush.
The pen is mightier
than the keyboard.
None of history's great artists drew with a
keyboard, and you shouldn't have to either.
So PC Paintbrush is now available with a
cordless PenMouse, to give you complete
freedom of expression. Of course, it also
supports regular mice, joysticks, graphics
tablets, and is compatible with most
graphics cards.
PC Paintbrush also has a beautiful way
with words. The text icon lets you write in
any of eleven fonts, in nine sizes, with italics,
outline, shadow and boldface variations.
What's more, with the new 3.0 PC
Paintbrush, you can draw rounded boxes,
rubber band curves and circles, and edit
pictures many times larger than the screen.
Are we making fun
of 1-2-3®? Why not?
For Lotus™ users, PC Paintbrush's new PIC
Go on, live a little.
^^^^^J Miillll ( :*t: 1 iif '"'ill
IM •• ■ 1 1 . IH
1 t '■<<,..• <!{>■ n'Mt IH
1 "V Wr
1 _^fl 1 n<|iiii:ri ni'i If H
■ I |
rtVK* II ^^^^^K
- -B^MMH
1 • g~^^^^ i
1S1BP
interpreter loads 1-2-3™ and Symphony™
charts and graphs at your equipment's
best resolution, from an IBM EGA™ (640
X 350 X 16 colors) to a Number Nine
Revolution™ (512 X 512 X 256 colors).
With our FRIEZE™ frame grabber you
can pull graphics created by any program
right off the screen into PC Paintbrush. So
you can take your Paintbrush and pallette
anywhere, improving the looks of things
as you go. And having a lot of fun on the
way. In addition, our optional presentation
package, PC PRESENTATION, allows you to
program your graphics into a first class
presentation with fades, zooms, quick
cuts and animation.
PC Paintbrush supports 19 video graphics
cards and 30 printers and plotters.
For more information on PC Paintbrush,
call or write us at the address below, or ask
your computer dealer for
a demonstration.
IIIIHIJ Ulii'll Willi
Z-SOFT
PC Paintbrush
Corporate Headquarters:
ZSoft Corporation, 1950 Spectrum Circle, Suite A 495, Marietta, GA 30067, 404/980-1 950
West Coo st Soles Office:
160 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., San Anselmo, CA 94960, 415/456-0955
PC Painttxush is a trademark of ZSoft Corporation. Lotus, 1-2-3, and Symphony are registered trademarte of Lotus Development Corporation
IBM and Enhance Graphics Adapter are registered trademarte of International Business Machines, Corp. Number Nine Revolution is a trademark of Number Nine Computer Corp.
Inquiry 396 for End-Users. Inquiry 397 for DEALERS ONLY.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 31
LETTERS
Hope appears to be offering the path
back to using these symbols for their own
sake. In Mr. Bailey's article we come across
the phrase "should be read as" many
times. In each case we are told that some
symbols should be read as a certain
phrase of English. Why can the interpreter
not display the English, allowing us to read
it directly? Surely the computer could ac-
cept the English instead of the symbols
when source code is input? I will concede
that it may be harder for the interpreter
to parse the English, and it takes longer
to input, but the interpreter could com-
promise and accept the symbols in input
while expanding them in listings to the full
English. This is similar to some BASIC in-
terpreters that allow the PRINT statement
to be input as ? and then expand it to its
full form in listings. Bearing in mind the
The Compact Disc.
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The Reference DataPlate, including
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The Audio Option lets you connect
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To Order Call:
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fact that the version of Hope used by Dick
Pountain in his BYTE U.K. column re-
arranged the order of the source when it
was displayed and put function declara-
tions in a separate order from their equa-
tions when the workspace was saved, it
seems apparent that the extra processing
required to expand the symbols to English
is minimal.
Let us hope (!| that this use of symbols
does not drag us back to unfriendly and
difficult-to-read source listings.
Andrew Menadue
Hayle, Cornwall, England
Having just finished reading the August
BYTE, with particular attention to the
theme section devoted to declarative pro-
gramming languages. 1 want first to ex-
press my appreciation to the editors for
the quality of the articles presented. Susan
Eisenbach and Chris Sadler's "Declarative
Languages: An Overview" (page 181) was
of particular interest to me and serves ad-
mirably to provide perspective on the
background of the subject, particularly for
one who has no ax to grind for any pro-
gramming language in particular.
Even the inevitable redundancies
amongst the several articles in reciting the
advantages of precise problem formula-
tion, facilitation of parallel processing, and
reduction of programming effort may final-
ly help to persuade even the more con-
servative members of the profession.
Others have noted many times the com-
mon reluctance of programmers to aban-
don the comfort of whatever language
they learned first. Witness FORTRAN!
The notion of using atomic routines
coded in machine-efficient modules and
organized through problem definition by
task lists in functional form is clearly not
new. I have just reread a speech of my
own. given in the spring of 1961 as one
of a series held in connection with MIT's
Centennial Year. The speech was entitled
A New Concept in Programming" and ap-
pears in the book Management and the Com-
puter of the Future edited by Martin
Greenberger (The MIT Press and lohn
Wiley & Sons, 1962). Granted that the tech-
nology has advanced far beyond what
most might then have anticipated, I still
feel that the ideas could have been ap-
plied more generally and quite profitably,
even then. Perhaps the profession may
soon recognize that such notions can
apply far more widely than to artificial in-
telligence alone.
George W. Brown
Irvine, CA
[continued on page 424)
32 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 313
•.Inside Apple
Vol. 2, No. 1
Go ahead, accuse us of
sensationalism.
Over the next four pages,
we're going to bare our specs and
divulge all the nitty gritty details
about the latest developments to
come out of Apple Computer.
Starting with our new Apple®
ColorMonitor lie and Color-
Monitor He.
In all modesty, we think these
are the best color monitors
you can buy at any price for your
Apple II, II-h lie or Dc personal
computer.
Both have composite color, 13-
inch screens that let you produce
a dazzling array of multi-hued
graphics. Without going to the ex-
pense of adding an RGB interface
card or external adaptor.
Simply plug the monitor
directly into the video output jack
on the back
Here's the Inside story on
all the colorful things that
have happened at Apple
of your Apple, and you're ready
to start computing in living color.
Which is terrific for games
and graphics oriented programs
like Apple Logo n, Instant Pascal™
and Dazzle Draw.
But not quite so terrific for
text programs. As anyone who's
ever gone blurry-eyed from trying
to read words on a color CRT will
readily attest.
Not to worry
We've designed both Color-
Monitors to automatically go
from color to a high resolution,
80-column monochromatic mode
anytime you use text software.
As you can see, we've also
styled each ColorMonitor to fit in
with our family looks.The Color-
Monitor lie is pure white, and has
an optional rigid stand. While the
ColorMonitor lie is designed to rest
Tie ColorMonitor lie on a lie.
on top of your Apple De, and comes
in our favorite shade of beige.
And thanks to some particu-
larly bright Apple engineers, our
ColorMonitors are compatible with
virtually all existing Apple II
software.
Well, there you have it. The
scoop on one of the most colorful
events in Apple history. But as you
might expect, it's certainly not the
whole story
If you turn the page, you'll see
that the saga continues.
The truth about
our new color printer
in black and white.
In case you haven't heard,
Apple has a whole new cast of
characters.
Our ImageWriter™ II printer.
Like its predecessor, the
original Apple ImageWriter,
our ImageWriter II is one of the
most dependable dot matrix
printers very little money can
buy. And its compatible with
every Apple personal computer.
But that's where the
similarities end.
The ImageWriter II prints
faster and clearer than the
original ImageWriter.
It cruises through drafts at
a blazing 250 characters per
second. Produces sharp graphics.
Creates near letter-quality text. And
lets you print in six vivid colors.
Simply change
the black rib-
bon to the con-
tinuous cloth,
InuiaMlrihr II i.. i
32KMSnory Option multl-COlOr
ribbon, and you're ready to churn
out reams of yellow, red, blue,
orange, green and purple output.
You can print pictures and
greeting cards with software like
Stickybear Printer, Design your own
£
color drawings with Blazing Paddles
- —
while the printer continues to print.
and Dazzle Draw And whip out col-
Attach the ImageWriter II
or business graphics using Super-
SheetFeeder, and you can automat-
Calc 3A, pfe: GRAPH or Mouse Calc.
ically load single sheets of paper
As you would expect, you can
into the printer.
vary the pitch and spacing on the
And by having your authorized
ImageWriter II. And print in stan-
Apple dealer install our AppleTalk™
dard or half height.
Option, the ImageWriter II can
But as you would probablv
even be shared bv several different
never expect, the ImageWriter II is
Macintosh™ workstations.
also expandable.
Which means, for businesses,
By adding the ImageWriter II
it can vastly improve the looks of
32K Memory Option print buffer,
one very important piece of paper:
you can continue to compute
Your budget sheet.
BOOK REP oi
The purpose of «
trance, methods
available. »
the pros ana»
mater, als and ct
favorite artwork
Uo-.t -yourself
U the P'« e "^
sentimental wai
professional .
yourself, fram'
win °<«" c °f c
the factor, ohc
se U you all tr
tools, advice i
cost of custom
hour to put to
hours, while c
unless you pay
craftsmanship
framer will °t
Income Statement
I Sales
[ Co«t»
Profit
Stop flipping
between floppies.
We call it the"floppy disk
shuffle'.'
Having to boot and re-boot
floppy disks every time you want
to go from one application to
another.
Well, the end of your shuffling
is in sight.
Cct:;v:t '„sf.f ■h.:i'-A-<- I.jtct Jturtit: twit**:
<& <& & »
Fur S«h» !'Ht wto
kCL'
Catalyst 30 trilh desktop icons.
Quark, Inc., will soon be ship-
ping a unique new program
called Catalyst™ 3.0 that's designed
to be used with Apple II computers
equipped with mass storage.
Catalyst 3-0 lets you install
multiple programs on a single
storage device. Macintosh-type
desktop icons show you what's
loaded on the program. To select
the item you want, simply use an
optional mouse or keyboard to
open the file.
Look for Catalyst 3.0 to show
up on dealer shelves soon.
Then you'll finally be able to
boot all those floppies for good.
A plug for our
new modem.
With the introduction of our
new Apple Personal Modem, we've
solved one of the biggest problems
known to modems:
Where to hide them.
The Apple Personal Modem
plugs directly into a standard A/C
wall outlet. So unless your com-
puter room is decorated with paisley
wallpaper, it'll blend right into the
immediate surroundings.
Of course, aesthetics aside, it's
also one darn good modem.
The Apple Personal Modem
offers 300/1200 baud operation.
Has the latest VLSI technology.
Features automatic dial, re-dial
and answer capabilities. Uses
the industry standard Hayes AT
Command Set. Plus it's totally
compatible with current Apple
communications software.
And even though we designed
the Apple Personal Modem to be
out of sight, there's one part of it
that's definitely not:
The price.
We've increased
our drive.
Our capacity for work just got
bigger.
The new Apple UniDisk™ 3.5
external drive uses 3W dual-sided
microdisks to add a humongous
'/lit
»
1
1
' '
"I
if
:m
800 kilobyte capacity to your
Apple II, II+, He or lie. Which is
more than five times the amount
of storage available from a stan-
dard 5 'A" drive.
The UniDisk 3.5 is also faster
than S l k" drives. So you'll spend
less time listening to that all-too-
familiar whirring sound.
You can even "daisy chain" a
second UniDisk 3.5 off the first one.
In case you're planning to write
the next great American epic or
something.
As you may not know, disk
drives are the most vulnerable
components of any computer sys-
tem. So it's nice to know that
no other disk drive is closer to fail-
safe than our UniDisk 3.5.
Because no other company
has our dedication to quality.
Our concern for reliability
Or our drive.
Coming Soon:
The biggest Apple
He in memory
The Apple II Memory Expan-
sion Card should be on dealer
shelves soon.
Before long, you'll be able to
instantly and easily add another
256K, 512K, 768K or full megabyte
of RAM to your Apple II, 11+ or
lie. Making it one of the most
powerful personal computers in
its class. Or business. Or home.
Snow white and dwarf
monthly payments.
Once upon a time, most
people had to dwindle their check-
ing accounts down to the right
side of the decimal point in order
to buy an Apple.
Or stretch their charge cards
to the place where they didn't
have a choice but to leave home
without them.
Then, mercifully, our finance
department invented the Apple
Credit Card.
leComputei;lnc
^■j Wj.
With an Apple Credit Card, you
may qualify for up to $2,500 of
instant credit to spend on the Apple
computer or peripherals of your
choice.
And, from now until December
31st, 1985, well generously waive
the 10% down payment.
Which means the only thing
you'll have to come up with
are the small monthly payments.
Getting your Apple Credit Card
is almost as easy as breathing. All
you need is another major credit
card. And a valid I.D.*
Which means, that very same
day, you'll be able to take your new
Apple home.
Where you'll both live happily
ever after.
Group therapy for
Apple users.
Have you ever felt like you
needed help— serious help— with
your Apple, but didn't know where
to turn?
Then we sug-
gest you join an
Apple Users Group.
From Kenne-
bunkport to
Kaanapali, Apple
Users Groups are
springing up by
the dozen.
They meet to
discuss ProDOS™
Pascal andWPL. Exchange public
domain software. Demonstrate new
products. Listen to guest speakers.
And provide the kind of moral
support that comes in handy after
"Range error" has popped up on
your DOS 3.3 screen for the 42nd
consecutive time.
Many groups publish regular
newsletters and magazines. And
operate bulletin boards that let you
get the information you want from
the comfort of your own modem.
But the most important thing
to know about Apple Users Groups,
is that theyre not just for hackers.
In fact, most members have only
novice or intermediate computing
skills. Which is why they join in
the first place.
To get in touch with the Apple
Users Group in your area, check with
your local authorized Apple dealer.
With over 400 Apple Users
Groups already in existence
throughout the U.S. and Canada,
chances are the help you need is
right around the corner.
Your computer should
join a health club.
Computers— even Apples-
can sometimes be temperamental
little devils.
And if something goes wrong
with yours after the 90-day limited
warranty expires, you're the one
who'll be out of shape.
Unless you get Apple&m SM
AppleCareis our extended serv-
ice contract that covers the cost of
parts and labor for up to three years.
And the annual fee is
usually about half the
cost of a single repair.
You can buy
AppleCaw from your
participating author-
ized Apple dealer.
And the contract will
be honored at more
than 2,400 Apple
dealers across the
country.
So even if you decide to move
to some out-of-the-way place like
Keokuk, your AppleCare coverage
will go along with you.
Although we can't guarantee
vour familv will.
Introducing
ikhral'ncanipi,,,
Wr Apple
" By major u e mean MasterCard. I ISA. American Exfrress, Diner s Club and Carte Blanche. Certain restrictions mm apply. © 1985 Apple Computer. Inc. Apple anil the Apple logo are registered
trailemarb of Apple Computer Inc. PmlXXS. DuoDisk. UniDisk, ImageVlriler and AjipleTalk are trademark, of Apple Computer. Inc. A/pleCare is a service mark of Apple Computer. Inc. Macintosh
is a trculemark of Mcintosh Laboratory: Inc. and is being used With its exltress permiision. Catalyst is a trademark of Quark Incorporated. Instant Pascal is a trademark of Think Technologies. Dazzle
Draw is a trademark ofBroderbund. Inc. stickyhear is a trademark of Optimum Resource. Inc. Blazing Paddles is a registered trademark ofBaiultille. Inc. Su/ierCalc i? a trademark ofSorcim
Corporation, I'FS is a registered trademark of Software Publishing Corporation. Mouse Calc is a trademark olMrsion Soft limes is a registered trademark of Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc.
For an authorized Apple dealer near you. call (800) 538-9696. In Canada, call (800) 268-7/96 or (800)268-7637.
U.S. POSTAL SERVICE
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP MANAGEMENT
AND CIRCULATION
(Act of August 12. 1970. Section 3685. Title 39,
United States Code)
1 . Title of publication: BYTE
2. Date of filing: October 1, 1985
3. Frequency of issue: Monthly
3A. Number of issues published annually: 13
3B. Annual subscription price: $21.00
4. Location of known office of publication: 70
Main St., Peterborough, NH 03458
5. Location of headquarters or general business
offices of the publisher: 1221 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020
6. Names and addresses of publisher, editor,
and managing editor: Publisher, Harry L.
Brown— 70 Main St., Peterborough, NH 03458;
Editor, Philip Lemmons— 70 Main St., Peter-
borough, NH 03458: Managing Editor. Gene
Smarte— 70 Main St., Peterborough. NH 03458
7. Owner: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the
Americas. New York, NY 10020. Stockholders
holding 1 percent or more of stock: Donald C
McGraw, Jr.; Harold W. McGraw, Jr; John L. Mc-
Graw; William H, McGraw; June M. McBroom;
Elizabeth McGraw Webster: all in care of
McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas.
New York. NY 10020; College Retirement Equity
Fund c/o Bankers Trust Company. 280 Park
Avenue, New York, NY 10015; Public Employees
Retirement System of Ohio. 277 East Town Street.
Columbus. OH 43215
8 Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other
security holders owning or holding 1 percent or
more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or
other securities: None
9. Not applicable.
10. Extent and nature of
circulation:
Actual No
Average No
Copies ot
Copies Each
Single Issue
Issue During
Published
Preceding
Nearest to
12 Months
Filing Date
A Total No. Copies Printed
487,500
476.000
B Paid Circulation
1 Sales through dealers
and earners, street
vendors and counter
sales
95.389
159.698
2 Mail subscriptions
316.859
306.236
C Total Paid Circulation
412,248
465.934
D Free Distribution by Mail,
Carrier or Other Means.
Samples. Complimentary,
and Other Free Copies
5.735
4.959
E Total Distribution
417.983
470.893
F Copies Not Distributed
1 Office use. left over
unaccounted, spoiled
after printing
6,529
5.107
2 Return from news
agents . .
62.988
none to dale
G Total .
487.500
476.000
11.1 certify that the statements made by me
above are correct and complete.
—Harry L. Brown, Publisher
FIXES AND UPDATES
UPDATE
NEC Patches Compatibility Gap
NEC Information Systems now offers an
alternative to Herbert Stein's patch
described in his "IBM Compatibility for
the NEC APC III" (see the September
BYTE, page 171). The SLE adapter board,
priced at $150, and the accompanying
software provide almost total compatibili-
ty without affecting the operation of stan-
dard APC software, NEC said. For more
information, contact NEC Information
Systems at 1414 Massachusetts Ave., Box-
borough, MA 01719.
BYTE'S BUGS
Mr. Slaughter Is Not Depressed
Don Slaughter of Seattle wrote to advise
us of an improvement to the Macintosh,
the Mini-Finder (see October, page 3921
Our published version of the letter said
he was "depressed" by the upgrade.
Quicksort Corrected
The truth is. Mr. Slaughter was not
depressed but impressed. We apologize to
Mr. Slaughter, and we hope our error did
not leave him depressed. We are certain
it didn't leave him impressed.
There is an error in the Quicksort algo-
rithm as it appears on page 108 of the
September BYTE (see "An Analysis of
Sorts" by Jonathan Amsterdam, page 105).
If the first element is chosen as the pivot.
as the text suggests, the algorithm will not
work. The solution is to swap the pivot
with the last element of the array before
partitioning. The corrected algorithm is
shown in listing 1.
Listing I: The corrected Quicksort algorithm.
Quicksort.
Input: an array A, with items from 1 to n.
Output: the same array, sorted.
begin
choose a pivot;
swap the pivot with the last element in
the array;
partition in the list so that all
items < - pivot are < = i;
Quicksort A from 1 to i- 1;
Quicksort A from i to n;
end.
m^mm BYTE S BITS
Public-Domain Powerhouses, Please
BYTE is planning a theme issue on public-
domain powerhouses. If you have, or are
working on. a worthy application or utili-
ty that you are willing to place in the
public domain, please contact Jon Ed-
wards at BYTE. POB 372, Hancock, NH
03449, (603) 924-9281 . He needs to hear
from you before the end of lanuary
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 33
.•Electronic Meeting
Until eForum- -
bulletin boards, e-mail
and computer conferencing
were just a lot of static.
Every major communications
breakthrough has its infancy. Computer
conferencing's first buz/ started with
randomly networked bulletin boards,
experimental CB's and then e-mail. Of
course. Federal projects gave conferencing
real legitimacy. But at a prohibitive price.
Now comes the giant step. eForum. It
shoots computer conferencing right off the
evolutionary chart by bringing long-awaited
sophistication that business needed to truly
put computer conferencing to work.
In a nutshell. eForum creates electronic
"meetings" which allow groups of people, not
just two or three, to communicate and "chat"
on a myriad of subjects. Without worrying
about time or geographic zones.
Since eForum maintains all the meetings in
one place, each person simply "attends" the
meeting at the most accessible time. And
eForum not only keeps track of what can
literally be hundreds of meetings, allowing
only those authorized to "attend," but
the easy-to-follow structure keeps the
"attendee" from getting lost or reading
unnecessary material.
Then eForum automatically organizes,
indexes and files and gives each person an
individualized view of what's new in the
meeting and a complete written record of
each meeting. Even sending totally private
messages is easy with eMemo, the enhanced
electronic mail facility.
That's revolutionary. Yet eForum goes
further by letting each organization set up
eForum the way that's most efficient for
it. By using internal host computers. Or
by accessing eForum through a national
communications network like General
Electric Information Service.
And, if that's not breakthrough enough,
eForum is even designed to let each person
use a personal computer and the most
popular software around — Lotus 1-2-3™,
WordStar™, MultiMate™, DisplayWrite™
and more — so "electronic handouts" can
be brought to each meeting.
Ibo, if you have need to do document
development with a team of people.
docuForum is our document editing
and transfer software which uses the
conferencing capabilities of eForum to
let team members comment and propose
changes to a document.
So, don't let the newest explosion in
computer conferencing catch you asleep at
the keyboard. Call our S(M) number and get
"on the meeting" now. And soon, just like
when the microchip changed the world's idea
about computers, you'll wonder how you ever
got along without eForum.
Call 800-638-4832 to find out how you can get an immediate on-line eForum
demonstration! In Michigan, call 313-994-4030. In Canada, call 604-682-6265.
Network Technologies International, Inc.
The Arbor Atriui:
315 West Huron
Ann Arbor, Midi
>J : ] =tlH 1 : f>1
[F@K V®W]^ IP
Advanced Digital's PC-Slave is the solution to your
multi-user or local area network problems.
•
•
-
Br
n
768K RAM dedicated to each user. Advanced
Digital provides additional software which sup-
ports File & Record locking and print spooling.
Advanced Digital's slave concept provides the best
multi-user PC system available today! For the location
of the dealer nearest you contact:
Advanced Digital Corporation
5432 Production Drive
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
(714) 891 -4004 (800) 251 -1 801
Telex 183210 ADVANCED HTBH
'/■ <& AQVANCED
DIGITAL • I
CORPORATION i
Advanced Digital U.K. Ltd.
27 Princes Street. Hanover Square
London W1R8NQ-United Kingdom
(01 ) 409-0077 (01 ) 409-3351
TLX 265840 FINEST
Regional Distributors: In California, Western Micro (800) 338-1600 / Micro Computer Distributors (714) 895-6301 / Thomas Data Systems. Inc. (213) 214-4661;
in Ontario, Canada, B*L (416) 299-7660; In Australia, Archives Computers (03) 699-8377; in New York, Quinn Data (914) 939-0002
WHAT'S NEW
SPECIAL REPORT
Turbo Lightning Provides Fast Access
By itself. Turbo Lightning
from Borland Interna-
tional is a flexible spelling
checker/thesaurus program
for the IBM Personal Com-
puter and compatibles.
However, as the first ele-
ment of the Turbo Lightning
Library, the program repre-
sents a gateway to a wide
range of future applications.
Its word-oriented search
mechanisms could be used
as the nucleus for a variety
of sophisticated data-
retrieval systems.
Basic Operation
The initial release of Turbo
Lightning is a memory-
resident program that
checks and corrects spelling
as you type. It monitors
your keystrokes and com-
pares each word to those in
a RAM-based dictionary.
(When you install the pro-
gram, you can choose one
of several word lists, ranging
from approximately 10,000
to 130,000 words. The size
of the dictionary determines
the amount of memory the
program occupies. In the
minimum configuration, Tur-
bo Lightning consumes 78K
bytes; the maximum is 236K
bytes.) If the program can't
find a match for what you
have entered, it beeps. You
can continue writing, or you
can request a listing of alter-
nate spellings. Using a
sound-alike algorithm, Turbo
Lightning builds a list of
possibilities, which it
presents in a window. You
can scroll through the list
and select a replacement.
Executing the commands
of the application program
you're using, Turbo Lightning
moves back to the begin-
ning of the incorrect word,
deletes the word, and makes
the substitution. Even if you
have chosen one of the
smaller word lists, Turbo
Lightning lets you go to the
disk and search the largest
dictionary. A "full-screen
check" command highlights
all unknown words on the
screen; as Turbo Lightning
can correct only words
stored in an 80-character
keyboard buffer, the check
is a simple way to remind
yourself of uncorrected
words.
You can also ask to con-
sult the thesaurus. Starting
with either your original
word or any of the alternate
spellings, Turbo Lightning
can derive a list of words
with similar meanings. The
replacement routine is the
same as the one already
described.
Turbo Lightning comes
with 11 preset "environ-
ments" that allow you to
use it while working with
any of five popular word
processors (WordStar,
pfs:Write, MultiMate, Word,
and Displaywriter), Lotus
1-2-3, BASICA, Turbo Pascal,
SideKick, DOS, and modem
communications (straight
ASCII). You can customize
and rename any of the en-
vironments to match your
primary software.
The program is operated
with pop-up menus (similar
to those used by Borland's
SuperKey utility) and with
single-keystroke "hot" keys.
The Dictionary
A Turbo Lightning dictionary
is compressed using several
techniques. First, a
character-frequency analysis
identifies frequent letter
combinations in the entire
word list. The combinations
are reduced to bit patterns.
Next, allowable suffixes and
groups of suffixes are
assigned bit codes. Finally,
because the words in the
dictionary are stored in
alphabetical order, a word
can be abbreviated to a
record of the changes from
the previous word.
Searches through the dic-
tionary are speeded by in-
dexing. The program uses
the first letter of a word to
isolate a region of the word
list, then it uses the second
letter, and so on. Only a few
full words are actually
scanned during a search. In-
dices can be nested, so
disk-based dictionaries can
be much larger than resi-
dent ones with little loss of
speed.
The Implications
By combining data compres-
sion with multilayered index-
ing, the Turbo Lightning
system can be used to pro-
vide quick access to any
data organized in dictionary-
like fashion. In the same
way that the word list can
be used as a key to the
thesaurus, it could be used
as the key to an encyclo-
pedia or database. Going
one step further, if the initial
dictionary were replaced
with a list of proper names,
for example, a link could be
made to addresses or
phone numbers or employ-
ment records. The full-
screen-check feature would
by Ezra Shapiro
provide cross-referencing
capability.
Because the Turbo Light-
ning program generates a
unique "word number" for
every word in the dictionary,
it could be used to develop
on-the-fly data compression
for communications. The
sound-alike techniques
coupled with the thesaurus
could serve as the basis for
an Al-like approximate
query language.
The Future
The Turbo Lightning Library
will be a collection of inter-
related products capitalizing
on this potential. Borland
plans to release a package
of word games based on
Turbo Lightning, including
source code in Turbo Pascal,
early in 1986. The source
code will illustrate tech-
niques for interfacing exter-
nal programs to the Turbo
Lightning engine. Also in the
first quarter of 1986,
Borland will begin
publishing reference works
that utilize the engine for
access. By the third quarter,
Borland hopes to market
compression/indexing
utilities that allow you to
convert your own data into
Turbo Lightning format. The
company is also open to
licensing the technology to
other software firms.
Turbo Lightning comes
with an installation program,
several Random House dic-
tionaries, and the Random
House Pocket Thesaurus. It
costs $99.95. Prices for
future products have not
been determined. Contact
Borland International Inc.,
4585 Scotts Valley Dr.,
Scotts Valley, CA 95066,
(408) 438-8400.
Inquiry 600.
{continued)
Inquiry 9 for End-Users.
*— Inquiry |Q for DEALERS ONLY.
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 37
WHAT'S NEW
AT&T s 80286-based
System Merges UNIX
with MS-DOS
AT&T Information
Systems has released a
version of the PC 6300. its
IBM PC-compatible desktop
computer. The new system,
called the PC 6300 Plus, fea-
tures a 6-MHz 80286 pro-
cessor with no wait states;
it's said to run approximate-
ly 2 5 percent faster than the
IBM PC AT AT&T said its
new machine runs all soft-
ware for the IBM PC or AT,
including Microsoft's Flight
Simulator.
The distinguishing feature
of the PC 6300 Plus, how-
ever, will be its implementa-
tion of the UNIX operating
system. In the first quarter
of 1986, AT&T will release a
full version of UNIX System
V for the machine. This im-
plementation is said to in-
clude advanced versions of
many of the same easy-to-
use features of AT&T's UNIX
PC. In addition, because of
a hardware unit called OS
Merge, this edition of UNIX
can run all MS-DOS applica-
tions as one of several con-
current UNIX tasks. AT&T
claims that OS Merge allows
MS-DOS software to "think"
it has complete control over
the system, thereby allowing
almost complete compatibili-
ty with IBM PC software.
This software, including
Flight Simulator, can run
under UNIX with a perfor-
mance penalty of only
about 1 5 percent.
Under single UNIX tasks,
the PC 6300 Plus is said to
be about 20 percent slower
than the UNIX PC. which
uses a 68010 processor.
Under multitasking situa-
tions, the difference is even
greater.
The combination of the
new rendition of UNIX with
OS Merge allows some in-
teresting capabilities: You
AT&T's PC 6300 Plus.
can call both UNIX and MS-
DOS applications from the
same menu. UNIX and MS-
DOS files reside on the
same area of a disk, and
they can be accessed by ap-
plication programs under
either operating system.
Data can be piped from a
UNIX program to an MS-
DOS program and vice
versa. And MS-DOS files can
take advantage of the robust
set of file attributes and
protection facilities available
to UNIX files.
The PC 6300 Plus comes
with 512K bytes of memory,
with sockets for an addi-
tional 5I2K bytes on the
motherboard. Expansion
boards with 2 megabytes of
memory reportedly will be
available soon and will allow
a maximum internal memory
of 7 megabytes.
The machine has one
serial and one parallel port
and seven expansion slots
compatible with the IBM PC.
Three of these slots are
compatible with the PC
6300. The new system also
has a socket for an 80287
numeric coprocessor. UNIX
utilities will be available to
take advantage of the 80287
chip.
AT&T is selling a new key-
board as an option for both
the PC 6300 Plus and the
older PC 6300. The key-
board has a Selectric-style
key layout; it's similar to that
of the IBM PC AT except
that the function keys are
laid out horizontally above
the other keys. The older PC
6300 keyboard, which re-
sembles the IBM PC key-
board, is also available.
The PC 6300 Plus comes
in two configurations: The
hard-disk model features a
20-megabyte hard disk, a
1.2-megabyte or a 360K-byte
floppy-disk drive, either
keyboard, and a mono-
chrome monitor with high-
resolution graphics and text
capability This version will
sell for $6320. A floppy-
disk-based system, which in-
cludes all the above except
the hard disk and features
both types of floppy-disk
drives, will sell for $5095.
Either system is available
with a color monitor for an
additional $650. MS-DOS
version 3.1 with BASIC sells
for an additional $65. When
available, the UNIX operat-
ing system will sell for ap-
proximately $395. An up-
grade is available to owners
of the PC 6300 for $2995.
Contact AT&T Information
Systems at (800) 247-1212.
Inquiry 601.
— Rich Malloy
MC68000 Plug-in
Board with Full
UNIX System V
Motorola is now selling
a 68000-based plug-in
CPU board for the IBM Per-
sonal Computer. The
PC/68000 hardware consists
of a 10-MHz 68000, an
MMU (memory management
unit), a cache, and 2
megabytes of dual-ported
RAM. The accompanying
software contains a com-
plete System V/68 operating
system as well as an I/O
kernel and diagnostics. (The
System V/68 was derived
from and is functionally
(continued)
38 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
NEW FROM BORLAND
Borland Introduces Reflex,
The Greatest Analytical Tool
Since The Couch
INTRODUCING REFLEX, THE ANALYST.
If you use Lotus 1-2-3™, dBASE® or PFS
File'", you need Reflex™ — because it's a
totally new way to look at your data. It
shows you patterns, relationships and
interrelationships you didn't know were
there, because they were hidden in data
and numbers.
Reflex is the first database that separates
the trees from the forest. The first database
that understands that what you see
depends on how you look at it.
The first database that probes
relationships — then shows them to you in
various graphic forms — scatter, line, bar,
stacked bar and pie charts.
The first database to break the bonds of
traditional DBMS (Data Base Management
Systems) and give a dramatic visual turn to
data analysis.
Reflex makes graphic leaps far beyond 1-2- 3.
With Reflex, when you look, you see.
HOW THE CRITICS REACT TO REFLEX
"The next generation of software has officially arrived "
Peter Norton, PC Week
"Reflex is one of the most powerful database programs on
the market; its multiple views; interactive windows and
graphics, great report writer, pull-down menus and cross
tabulation make this one of the best programs we have seen
in a long time.. The program is easy to use and not
intimidating to the novice... Reflex not only handles the
usual database functions such as sorting and searching, but
also "what-if' and statistical analysis.. .it can create
interactive graphics with the graphics module. The separate
report module is one of the best we've ever seen. ' '
Marc Stern, IntoWorld
"What you see, then, is an interesting hybrid of a database
and a spreadsheet that is ideal for analyzing tabular data."
Adam B. Cram, IntoWorld
"More flexible than spreadsheets, this easy-to-use database
analysis package presents information with visual
clarity.. .Reflex is for you The flexibility of switching
between different views of the data lets you see
relationships you may have previously overlooked.. .Without
"what-if* analysis, key variables — such as cost of goods
sold or travel expenses — may be out of hand but unnoticed
The type of analysis to uncover such a foible is awkward to
do on a spreadsheet; yet, it may mean the difference
between success and failure in a competitive situation."
Ira H. Krakow, Business Computer Systems
♦
INTERNATIONAL
4585 Scons Valley Drive, Scons Valley CA 95066
Phone (408) 438-8400 Telex 172373
Trademarks Reflex Is a trademark of BORUND/Anaiyttca inc Loos Is a registered
Trademark and Lotus 1-2-3 Is a trademark of Lotus Development Corporation dBASE
is a registered trademark of AshtonTate PFS is a registered trademark and PFS File
is a trademark of Software Publishing Corporation. IBM PC. XT. AT. PC-DOS and
IBM Color Graphics Adapter are registered trademark! of International Business
Machines Corporation Herailes Monochrome Graphics Card Is a trademark of
Hercules Computer Technology
Inquiry 39 for End-Users.
Inquiry 40 for DEALERS ONLY.
REFLEX OPENS MULTIPLE WINDOWS
WITH NEW VIEWS AND GRAPHIC
INSIGHTS.
You use Reflex's Form View to build your
database; the List View lets you put data in
tabular List form; the Graph View gives you
instant interactive graphic representations;
the CrossTab View gives you amazing
"cross-referenced" pictures of the links and
relationships hidden in your data. Report
View allows you to import and export data
to and from Reflex, 1-2-3, dBASE, PFS File
and other applications and prints out
information in the formats you want. In
fact, Report View is probably the best 1-2-3
report generator you can buy today. It's
also the cheapest — and you're getting all
the other features free.
The commands for all five Views are
consistent — so you're not stuck learning
five different ways to get something done.
And because Reflex uses advanced
windowing techniques, you can see several
views on the screen at the same time —
without having to switch back and forth.
You get the picture — and the pictures — all
at once — if that's the way you want to look
at things.
Modify a number and all your Views — List,
Form and Graph — are immediately
updated, on-screen. Changing a number
changes the picture — which is mighty
handy when you're analyzing (let's say)
sales figures by salesperson; or you're in
"What-if?" country asking yourself "What if
we could add 2.5% in January sales?'
"Show me."
"Give me the picture." "Show me what
happens when we shift 11% of Nebraska's
inventory to the new store in Hawaii."
"Show me how many Gizmo 28's we have
in every store in every state as of midnight
last night and what happens to our East
Coast stocks if the shipping strike lasts
more than a week." "Show me."
So Reflex shows you. Instant answers.
Instant pictures. Instant analysis. Instant
understanding.
HOW IN THE WORLD CAN BORLAND SELL
A PHENOMENAL PRODUCT LIKE REFLEX
FOR ONLY S99.95?
At $495.00, Anaiytica's original price, Reflex
was a bargain. Acclaimed by critics and
praised by users, Reflex also got our
attention at Borland International. We were
so impressed by Reflex that we bought the
company!
To celebrate that, we're making business
software history by offering Reflex — FOR A
LIMITED TIME— for ONLY $99.95! (Offer
good through March 31, 1986).
That's $39505 off the original price—
which is a pretty good return on your toll-
free phone call.
We think Reflex should be an "automatic
product," a "standard" that every PC owner
should own. That's why we priced it at
$9995. Naturally we've added our 60-day
money-back guarantee and Borland's
Reflex is not copy-protected.
I
^^f^'- -
YES! Rusfi
Reflex to me.
Send me —
. copies
60-DAY
sssfesssr
fe^Sf
% $99
9$
(CAtesadOSStaxpe
Amount Enclosed
„, VISA
Payment
, catd £*P Da,e
1
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■^lohtra* Borland
WHAT'S NEW
equivalent to AT&T's UNIX
System V. M68000 version.)
While System V/68 runs on
the PC/68000, PC-DOS run-
ning on the 8088 (or 80286
in the AT) handles the
68000's I/O requests. Press-
ing the Alt-M key combina-
tion switches between
System V/68 and PC-DOS.
Motorola uses buffering and
cache memory in both the
main PC and on the
PC/68000 card to let the
68000 run at top speed.
Files may be transferred
either way between the two
systems.
At the same time that the
new PC/68000 promises to
transform IBM PC hosts into
68000 development systems.
Motorola is terminating
some of its older 8-bit and
16-bit development support
systems. After December 31
of this year, Motorola will
not accept orders for the
EXORmacs 16-bit develop-
ment host and peripherals;
EXORciser 8-bit develop-
ment host, peripherals, and
plug-in expansion boards;
EXORset 8-bit development
host and peripherals; VMC
68/2 microcomputer system
and peripherals; several
other hardware development
stations, bus state analyzer
personality modules, evalua-
tion modules, system
analyzers, and all associated
software for those products.
The PC/68000 can be used
with IBM PCs that have at
least a 10-megabyte hard
disk. The complete PC/
68000 module (hardware
and software) carries part
number MPCKN2M and a
list price of S4500. Contact
Motorola Semiconductor
Products Inc. POB 20912.
Phoenix, AZ 85036, (800)
521-6274.
Inquiry 602.
Planar Systems EL8358 M flat-panel display.
Flat-Panel Display
for MS-DOS
Planar Systems' EL83 58
M is a flat-panel
monitor with an elec-
troluminescent display for
MS-DOS machines. It has a
resolution of 640 by 200
pixels, providing 83 lines
per inch within a 5- by
8-inch active matrix. Each
pixel is individually address-
able and has a pixel aspect
ratio of 2:1.
A complete EL83 58 M, in-
cluding the electrolumines-
cent panel, driver and con-
trol electronics, bezel, frame,
and connector, is 5.7 inches
high, 10.3 wide, and 0.5 5
deep and weighs 16 ounces.
It is not affected by electro-
magnetic environments and
will run in temperatures of
to 5 5° Celsius, Planar said.
It can withstand shocks of
100 Gs on all axes and
storage temperatures of -40
to 75° Celsius.
The system uses patterned
indium tin oxide and
aluminum electrodes around
a layer of bright yellow emit-
ting phosphor. It requires a
12-volt power supply to
operate.
An EL83 58 M developer's
kit. including a monitor, a
circular polarizer, and a
power supply, costs $17 50.
Contact Planar Systems Inc.,
1400 Northwest Compton
Dr.. Beaverton, OR 97006.
(503) 690-1100.
Inquiry 603.
Keyboard System for
Visually Handicapped
The Audiodata/IBM PC
Keyboard from Frank
Audiodata GmbH of West
Germany uses tone and
speech capabilities to make
the IBM PC accessible to
blind and visually impaired
users. The system generates
different tones depending
on the type of data at the
cursor's screen location. To
position the cursor, you use
sliding switches that corre-
spond to the horizontal and
vertical axes.
The vertical switch is on
the left-hand side of the
Audiodata keyboard, next to
the function keys. Moving it
from top to bottom yields a
series of tones that tells you
whether lines are blank or
full of text. The horizontal
switch is below the space
bar. Moving it left and right
yields tones that indicate
letters, spaces, numbers, and
punctuation marks in a line.
By moving the switches and
listening to the resulting
tones, you can tell how
many characters of what
type are at what position on
the screen.
The keyboard contains a
Votrax SC-01 speech pro-
cessor, so you can literally
have the system read a por-
tion of text out loud. Press-
ing a button on the vertical
switch tells the system to
read the line of text that
corresponds to its position.
Using the vertical and the
horizontal switches to-
gether, you can have the
system read or spell par-
ticular words.
The Audiodata keyboard
works with standard or
large-print monitors or with
no monitor at all. It comes
with a 6-inch add-in card
and the system software for
S34 50. Contact Maryland
Computer Services, 2010
Rock Spring Rd., Forest Hill,
MD 21050. (301) 879-3366.
Inquiry 604.
C Compiler for
Apple lie
The C + + Compiler is a
complete C compiler
for the Apple He that
generates pseudocode; it in-
cludes an assembler to con-
vert that pseudocode to
6502 assembly language
and a 6502 native code
assembler. A pseudocode
interpreter allows the com-
piler's output to be im-
mediately tested without
generating native 6502
code. The interpreter can
also be used to distribute
large programs more com-
pactly if execution speed is
acceptable.
C + + contains all the
features of C as defined by
Kernighan and Ritchie, ex-
cept that floating-point
arithmetic is not supported.
Extensions and enhance-
ments, such as enumerated
types, structure and array
(continued)
40 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
NEW FROM BORLAND!
Borland introduces Tuibo Lightning
the fastest, most amazing
information system since your brain
You can now find out everything in a flash.
With instant access to electronic veisions of the 83,000 word
TUrbo Lightning'" Random House® Speller & Word List; the
50,000-word Thrbo Lightning Random House Thesaurus™
and the soon-to-be-released Thrbo Lightning Encyclopedia™
— and to an astonishing array of electronic reference books
which form Borland's new Thrbo Lightning Library™
Hitting one key on your IBM® personal computer — taps
you into this new electronic age of instant information.
You get the right word, the right spelling, the right name,
the right address, right now.
What we've done has been called "Artificial Intelligence,"
we simply call it "TUrbo Lightning." This information
revolution — driven by TUrbo Lightning — means that the
way you look things up is definitely looking up.
No matter what program you're running,
Turbo Lightning instantly checks your
Spelling as you type. You could be running
WordStar®, MultiMate™, SideKick®, Microsoft® Word, MO
Mail®, CompuServe®, or whatever, because as you work, as
you write, Thrbo Lightning is waiting in the wings, watching
how you spell every word, but not getting in the way of what
you're doing.
So how does it work? Let's say the word you meant to
type was "RIGHT," but you accidentally typed 'RIHGT,"
which is wrong. What happens then?
You immediately hear a 'beep,' so you know there was a
boo-boo. You instantly see a window, that doesn't list
"RIHGT" but it does list 'RIGHT' and its sound-alike words.
So your screen looks like this:
rihgt
Sound Alike Words :
Turbo Lightning does a lot more than spell
"right" right, It also gives you instant
synonyms. Because you also have Thrbo Lightning's
Random House Thesaurus at your fingertips, you can really
get to know your 'rights.' So back to the word "Right," but
this time in the thesaurus. Type in "Right" and what you see
in the on-screen window is:
righ t
A:
B:
C:
-Adject i ve -
straight
true
accurate
D
sound |
E:
F:
G
H
1:
normal
-Noun-
claim
title
due
ownership .1
PgUp or PgDn for more words I »
: rights
u: righted
D: rightly
E: relight
F: rig hter
G. Add word to auxiliary dictionary
PgUp or PgDn for more words
So you move your cursor to "A." which is the right
"right," hit Return and the spelling mistake is instantly
fixed. And the program you were working on has continued
to run while you did a little spelling sidetrip with Turbo
Lightning. (If \w'd rather not remember your Spelling gratis in school, the
beep might make you nuts, but you can choose the 'whole page" cptim, Much
means that then you Bnish writing &e entile page, any spelling mistakes will be
highlighted- Yen go in and straighten things out straight avayX
Lightning never goes away, is 100% concurrent, reliable,
accurate and cannot, does not, will not 'crash & bum.'
Your document, letter, report, spreadsheet is word perfect
and no one ever knows that you can't spell for beens.
BORLAND
I N T C IJ ATI O N A L
4535 SCOTTS MUEYOftltrZ SCOTTS WU£Y,
CA 95066 PHONB{40B) 438-6400 TEL£Xm3T3
>Uetm?lna, Turfx* Ughumtg Ent^t'topedin, andTtiiho tiginntPg library we
mwfo,antfsitiaK)tK .s >nat toe
i»tt House is .i rvglstena In:. lUM f i tfC. AT
:T,b'' ! .U".:kk*:.C'J iQf'er-irk- of
i> .! ;tMk''Xii% :'i'. h;S&'a': IriK-i'WJJOr^i C*p Wi.'UtSw * :j cs$SU":ed ihi.fcniarfe :>< ;
t.
WCI Mutl is * rev».ereJ trademark ,,| MCI Cumwurwladi'm Cv*p C«mpuSe«"- « *
x-~ ,,. t- f , '< in I " ik* v^ *j<p
Inquiry 41 lor F.n<(-UscR Inquiry .13 lor DEALERS ONLY
So you instantly know more than one way to say, "The
Boss is always right," which is handy if you get cornered
and have to lie like that
Introduce yourself to Turbo Lightning and it
will never ever forget your name, its conceivable,
if unfair, that your name is not in the dictionary already, but
you can instantly teach Tinbo lightning your name and all
the other names and words it needs to know to help run
your business or personal life.
Once you've taught TUrbo Lightning what it needs to
know, you'll never blow it with a letter to the pint Cheels of
Staff, the Raygan White flows? or mess something up on your
1MB PC. (MB PC is not 1 mdemart of international
Business Machine Corp!)
Not $500, not S400, not $300, not $200, not
$100, just $99.95 for this instant electronic
miracle. Our success is pretty simple. We're not greedy. We
believe that it is better to sell hundreds of thousands of
software programs at a reasonable price — instead of a few at
prices that would make Jesse James blush.
Just $99-95 gets you into the Tbrbo Lightning Library —
which is an incredible deal when you look at what you're
getting. You're getting the access system' — Thrbo
Lightning— which is the "engine" that powers the whole
Thrbo Lightning Library. You're getting the "engine" plus the
83,000-word Thrbo Lightning Random House Speller and
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WHAT'S NEW
assignments, anchored vari-
ables, and nested functions
are also included but do not
interfere with compilation of
standard C source code.
A proprietary operating
system, C-DOS, is used so
that more program space is
available on disk and in
memory; complete C source
code for the operating sys-
tem, the pseudocode inter-
preter, and all libraries are
included. The operating sys-
tem or interpreter can be in-
corporated in programs de-
veloped under C + + without
royalty charges.
While neither C + + nor
programs generated by it
run directly under DOS 3.3
or ProDOS. it is possible to
modify object files to run
under ProDOS. according to
the publisher.
C + + is available for
$43.95 plus a $6 shipping
charge. For more informa-
tion, contact the WSM
Group, Suite 241, 1161 North
El Dorado Place, Tucson, AZ
85715, (602) 298-7910,
Inquiry 605.
Microcomputer-based
Storage and
Transmission of Color
Video Pictures
Widcom's Rapics 500 at-
taches to a personal
computer and uses digital
video-compression tech-
niques to store and recall
NTSC-compatible television
color images. The com-
pressed images can be
stored (100 will fit on a stan-
dard 360K-byte floppy disk)
or transmitted over a stan-
dard modem (a typical 8K-
byte image can be sent in
approximately 50 seconds at
1200 bps). An image can
usually be compressed or
expanded in less than 5
seconds.
The PC/IT from Sperry.
The video compression
takes place inside the stand-
alone unit that connects to
the microcomputer through
the RS-232C interface. The
interface can operate at
1200, 2400, 9600, or 19,200
bps. The system is con-
trolled by menu-driven soft-
ware, and the computer acts
as a file server.
Images are captured in
192K bytes of RAM and are
then compressed using a
transform-coding technique.
Each image is analyzed for
the best resolution, clarity.
and compression ratio; sim-
ple images are compressed
more than complex images,
A typical compressed image
occupies 8K bytes, a simple
image 2K bytes, and a
highly-complex image 12K
bytes.
The Rapics 500 can over-
lay black-and-white or color
labels on an image. You can
put a total of 480 characters
at any position on the
screen. The computer-
generated text overlay is
handled as a separate file
and can be disabled for
viewing the underlying
image.
Video output from the
Rapics 500 is standard NTSC
and can be fed into any
video printer. You can cap-
ture a live off-air television
image, store it, and recall it.
Widcom claims the Rapics
500 can retrieve a color
television picture stored on
another computer system at
a remote location and dis-
play it on a local television
monitor in less than 10
seconds.
Widcom is selling a copy
stand that includes a color
television camera and zoom
lens. This allows you to
digitize material for the
Rapics system.
General Electric Informa-
tion Services helped fund
the development of the
Rapics 500 and also has
rights to market it.
The Rapics 500 suggested
list price is $4 500. The op-
tional copy stand is also
$4500. Contact Widcom Inc.,
1500 East Hamilton Ave,,
Campbell, CA 95008, (408)
377-9981.
Inquiry 606.
Sperry AT-compatible
Runs at 6, 7.16,
or 8 MHz
S perry's PC/IT Personal
Computer is compatible
with programs written for
IBM's PC AT but is said to
operate faster and support
more users. Based on Intel's
8-MHz 80286 processor, the
PC/IT allows switch-selection
of clock speed to operate at
6, 7.16, or 8 MHz for com-
patibility with software de-
signed to run using IBM's
6-MHz PC AT. You can ex-
pand the PC/IT's standard
512K bytes of RAM to 1
megabyte on the main cir-
cuit board or to 5 mega-
bytes using two expansion
cards. The system's standard
1.2-megabyte floppy-disk
drive can be supplemented
with one or two 44.6-mega-
byte hard-disk drives and a
60-megabyte tape drive
The PC/IT comes with MS-
DOS 3.1. GW-BASIC and a
diagnostics disk. As an op-
tion, you can use the XENIX
System V operating system
to provide support for up to
eight additional users run-
ning software compatible
with AT&T's UNIX System V.
The basic PC/IT with one
1.2-megabyte disk drive,
512K-byte RAM. and a
{continued)
42 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
76e Sd$e <ind
Settle are part of a
family of peripheral
products for your IBM
PC, PC/XT, PC/AT—
multifunction boards,
tape backup, hard disk
storage, modems and
expansion systems.
Use this ad to compare us to our
competition . . . then call your
local dealer for a hands-on
demonstration.
Inquiry 135 for End-Users
Inquiry 136 for DEALERS ONLY
Department B
47777 Warm Springs Blvd
Fremont, CA 94539
(415) 498-1111
EVER for Excellence
Inside California:
(800) 82 1 -0807
Outside California:
(800) 821-0806
WHAT'S NEW
monochrome-graphics
adapter and monitor is
priced at S4340. A multiuser
configuration with 1 -mega-
byte RAM. a 44.6-megabyte
hard disk. 1.2-megabyte
floppy disk, and a multi-
terminal adapter is S6834.
For more information, con-
tact Sperry Corp., Informa-
tion Systems Group. POB
500. Blue Bell. PA 19424.
(215) 542-4213.
Inquiry 607.
Touchpad Accessory
for the IBM PC
Polytel Computer Prod-
ucts has introduced the
Keyport 60. a small rec-
tangular touchpad that fits
along the top of the IBM PC
keyboard. It has 60 touch-
sensitive regions that can be
programmed as function
keys and defined in regular
and shift modes, so the
Keyport 60 will accom-
modate a maximum of 120
macro commands.
To record a macro, you
press the Alt key on your
regular keyboard and a
touchpad key simultaneous-
ly. Any keystrokes that
follow are recorded until
you press the Alt and
touchpad keys a second
time.
The touchpad package
comes with KPEDIT. a full-
screen editor that allows
you to edit key definitions.
Keyport 60 works with the
IBM PC, XT, AT, and com-
patible personal computers,
using the joystick adapter to
allow concurrent operation
with your regular keyboard
It costs 399. Contact Polytel
Computer Products, Suite
310, 12 50 Oakmead Park-
way, Sunnyvale, CA 94086,
(800) 245-6655; in California,
(408) 730-1347.
Inquiry 608.
The first of the Transputers, the IMS T414.
Inmos Releases First
Transputers
Inmos has released the
first of its linkable
self-contained computer
chips called Transputers.
Each Transputer chip holds
a fast microprocessor, a
small amount of memory,
and four communications
links for connections with
external devices or other
Transputers (see the May
issue of BYTE, page 219).
The Transputers run under a
proprietary language called
Occam, which can accom-
modate multiprocessing
tasks.
The first Transputer to
become available is the IMS
T414, which features a 32-bit
processor (executing instruc-
tions at a reported rate of
10 MIPS). 2K bytes of RAM,
and four high-speed data
links (10 megabits/second). A
version with 4K bytes of
RAM should be available
soon, according to Inmos.
The T414 is sold as a
single chip ($500 each in
100-unit quantities) or as
part of an evaluation board.
Several boards are available,
including the B001-1, with
64K-byte RAM and two
serial ports ($2 500); the
B002-I. with l-megabyte
RAM and two serial ports
($3 500): and the B004-1,
with l-megabyte RAM and
an IBM expansion bus con-
nector ($3500)
To develop software for
the Transputer, you need the
Transputer Development Sys-
tem software ($4000 for the
IBM PC XT version). Contact
Inmos Corp., POB 16000,
Colorado Springs, CO
80935. (303) 630-4000; or
Inmos Limited. Whitefriars,
Lewins Mead. Bristol BS1
2NP, England, (0272)
290861.
Inquiry 609.
Dot-Matrix Printers
Offer Font
Cartridges, IBM PC/
Epson Graphics
The MT85 and MT86
dot-matrix printers from
Mannesmann Tally run at
180 characters per second
in draft mode and 4 5 cps in
near-letter-quality mode.
Both printers can connect
through plug-in interface
modules with most popular
personal computers, offer
changeable typefaces in the
NLQ mode, and generate
sound levels below 5 5 dBA.
The only difference between
the two models is that the
MT85 can print 80 columns
across a page and the MT86
can print 136.
The machines are pro-
grammable from computer
or interface and retain pro-
grams even when power is
shut off. Full IBM PC/Epson
character sets are standard.
With the plug-in interface
modules, the MT85 and
MT86 can emulate IBM
Graphics, Apple Imagewriter.
and Epson FX printers. You
can change the standard
Quadrato typeface to
Courier. Letter Gothic, or
Script Italics by using the
optional typeface cartridges.
The printers can also pro-
duce both condensed and
expanded print.
The MT85 and MT86 use
standard fabric ribbon car-
tridges or high-carbon mylar
cartridges. Both friction feed
and tractor feed are stan-
dard features. The tractor
feed can be adjusted to the
full width of the MT86.
List prices are $499 for
the MT85 (80-column) and
$599 for the MT86 (136-
column). Typeface cartridges
are $34.95. Contact Man-
nesmann Tally Corp.. 8301
South 180th St., Kent. WA
98032, (800) 447-4700; in
Washington, (206) 2 51-5500.
Inquiry 610.
{continued)
44 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
IT EXPECTS YOU
TO GROW.
INTRODUCING THE NCR PC6.
If you don't want your business to stay small, why get a computer
that does? No personal computer gives you more growing room than
the new NCR PC6.
The PC6 can be upgraded to 40 megabytes— room for 7,575 pages
of charts, inventory lists or business letters.
As your business takes off, you'll take on more jobs, more respon
sibilities, and have less time for them. So the PC6 runs the estimated
10,000 compatible programs at 8MHz processing speed. (Almost twice
as fast as the PC XT™) And for low speed programs, a switch down
shifts the PC6 to 4.77 MHz.
When you're ready for multitasking, more memory, and new ap
plications, so is the PC6.
There are four integral drive positions for hard and floppy disks
plus a tape backup. Mix and match to suit your needs. And no PC
offers more expansion slots (eight in all).
Expand your staff and the PC6 extends your authority. It's the
perfect nucleus for a computer network.
And no matter how big you get, you'll never outgrow NCR's sup-
port. We're big in 120 countries, with 1,200 service support offices.
So if you're a small businessman with big ambitions, take on the
new NCR PC6. It's as anxious to grow as you are.
For the nearest NCR dealer, call toll-free 1-800-544-3333?
A BETTER PERSONAL COMPUTER. ITS EXACTLY WHAT YOU'D
EXPECT FROM NCR.
NCR
Inquiry 262
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NEW SERVICES
Ordering Disks of BYTE Listings
Source-code listings in the form of text files
of programs that accompany BYTE articles are now
available from BYTE on disk. To order a disk
of these listings for noncommercial purposes,
indicate the issue (the first available is December
1985) and the kind of disk below. Enclose a check
or money order in the correct amount made out
to BYTE Listings. All prices include postage.
BYTE issue:
COMMON 5 '/.-inch FORMATS
(all cost $5 per disk in North America. $6 in Europe
and South America, $7 in Asia, Africa, and Australia)
□ IBM PC
□ Apple II 5/4-inch DOS 3.3
□ Apple II 5!4-inch ProDOS
□ Commodore 64
□ Hewlett-Packard 1 2 5
□ Kaypro 2 CP/M
□ TRS-80 Model III
C TRS-80 Model 4
□ Texas Instruments Professional
G Zenith Z-100
□ Atari
COMMON 3 '/2-inch FORMATS
(all cost S6 per disk in North America. $7 in Europe
and South America. S8 in Asia, Africa, and Australia)
□ Apple Macintosh
□ Atari 520ST
□ Commodore Amiga
D Hewlett-Packard 150
□ Data General-One
CP/M STANDARD 8-inch FORMAT
($6 per disk in North America, S7 in Europe and South
America, $8 in Asia, Africa, and Australia)
□ Single-sided single-density
OTHER FORMATS
(all cost S6 per disk in North America, S7 in Europe
and South America. $8 in Asia, Africa, and Australia)
Size Machine
□ 8-inch
□ 51/4-inch
□ 3 '/2-inch .
SEND DISK TO:
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Street
City
State or Province
Country
Postal Code
Check or money order enclosed for S_
60 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Signing Up for BYTECOM
To sign up for computer conferencing among BYTE
readers in Europe, write to
QZ/BYTE
Stockholm University Computing Center
Box 27322
S-102 54 Stockholm, Sweden
Telephone: 46 8 679280
The BYTECOM system includes program listings that go
with BYTE articles. Send a sign-up fee using Swedish
postal giro 184070-1 for the equivalent of 200 Swedish
crowns (about $2 51 and fill in the form below. There will
be an additional connect-time charge of $6 per hour for
accessing BYTECOM.
Name
Street
City
Postal Code
Telephone _
State or Province
Country
What kind of computer do you use?
Bulletin Boards Outside the U.S.
Listed below are some computer bulletin boards
that will carry program listings from BYTE outside
the U.S. Programs are for noncommercial use in
connection with BYTE articles only. There are no
usage charges but you must pay your own tele-
phone charges.
CANADA
Western Canadian Distribution Center (101 11112 101 st
St.. Edmonton. Alberta T5G 2A2) will be supplying
listings to its member bulletin-board systems.
Canadian Remote Systems, Toronto, Ontario,
(4161 231-9202
Edmonton, Alberta. (403) 4 54-6093
Meadowlark, Alberta, (403) 43 5-6579
Prince George, British Columbia, (604) 562-9519
Regina. Saskatchewan. (306) 586-5585
Winnipeg, Manitoba. {2041 452-5529
ENGLAND
Frank Thomleys Fido, Compulink. 4867 653 5
NETHERLANDS
Henk Wevers Fido, +31-8380-37156
Mr. Wevers serves as the main distribution center for 16
other Fidos in The Netherlands.
In addition, arrangements for BYTEnet Listings are being
made with one or more system operators in the follow-
ing nations: Australia, Canada. Chile. Denmark. England.
France, Hong Kong, Ireland. Italy. Japan. Norway,
Singapore, and West Germany.
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Let's C Benchmark Done on
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Exec Time in Seconds
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| 1989 Mark Williams I NIX i.sa trademark of Bell Labs.
1 430 West Wrightwood
Chicago, Illinois 60614 Inquiry 224
Reviewed by G. Michael Vose
More than 20 years ago, John G. Kemeny and Thomas
E. Kurtz created the BASIC computer language and
placed it in the public domain. Now they have tried to
rprlaim thpir nrnopnv anrl pyprt an infh ipnrp nn \tc futurp
i,,iiwiii ipiiii i mi \mMi s'mmmm^
able part of this book. The reminiscences of the professors
reveal their excitement at the prospect of opening up to
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is in these vignettes a strong undercurrent of the "hacker
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Cnmnuter Rpvnlutirm (nniihlprlav 1Q84I— a need tn share the
v-a-,* The C for Microcomputers
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BOOK REVIEWS
The professors make a lot of the fact that Dartmouth
BASIC underwent seven major revisions but fail to note
that Microsoft BASIC has seen at least six. These revisions
have added significant improvements to the language's
power and syntax and have even provided for true com-
pilation. In addition, companies other than Microsoft have
produced implementations of BASIC that are arguably as
good as the Dartmouth versions.
The Message
Being learned men, Kemeny and Kurtz understand that
BASIC'S corruption was often by necessity— squeezing the
language into 4K-byte and 8K-byte microcomputers re-
quired some compromises in functionality. But since to-
day's machines impose fewer performance restrictions, the
professors assert that it's time for a refurbished BASIC to
take its place alongside Pascal and other respectable
languages as a legitimate functional and educational tool.
That constitutes the message of Back to BASIC. Using ex-
ample program fragments written in True BASIC the pro-
fessors argue that BASIC is a good programming language.
Their arguments are well founded even if their objectivity
might be questioned. The latest version of Dartmouth
BASIC the proposed ANSI standard for BASIC, and the
professors' commercial version of the language are all
useful and powerful programming systems.
Many people question, however, the need for versions
of BASIC that differ from the widely used Microsoft ver-
sion. The important issues of data-file compatibility and
source-code transportability of Microsoft BASIC programs
with other versions of the language concern many peo-
ple who can appreciate the potential of a new BASIC but
have an existing software investment to protect.
Not Convincing
Since Back to BASIC was apparently written in part to justify
the existence of the new True BASIC and to anticipate ob-
jections to its adoption, it is surprising that the issues of
compatibility and transportability between ANSI BASIC
and the Microsoft version are never addressed. Similarly
Kemeny and Kurtz never discuss the releaming process
that many programmers who grew up with Microsoft
BASIC will have to undergo in order to adapt to the "new"
BASIC.
As a result, the book doesn't convince me that an ANSI
standard version of BASIC is right for me. And the space
that Kemeny and Kurtz devote to espousing the message
that a standard is necessary could have been put to bet-
ter use by elaborating on the historical narrative of the
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Technical & Other Info. (602) 246-2222
SOFTWARE
DATA BASE MANAGERS
Alpha Data Base manager $165
Clout 2 129
Condor III 299
Fox and Geller Quickcode 145
Fox and Geller Quickreport 145
Friday 159
Knowledgeman 225
K Paint 60
K Graph 135
K Text 105
K Report 135
Nutshell 55
PFS: File 78
Power Base 2.1 199
RBase 5000 Call
Think Tank 98
Tim IV 169
WORD-PROCESSING
Easy (Micro Pro) 89
Leading Edge w/Merge 85
Microsoft Word 225
Multimate Call
Multimate Advantage 255
Oasis Word Plus 85
Peachtext 5000 145
PFS: Write 78
Random House Spell Checker 36
Samna III 3.0 265
Volkswriter Deluxe 139
Word Perfect 4.1 195
Wordstar 170
Wordstar Propac 238
Wordstar 2000 238
Wordstar 2000+ 285
SPREADSHEETS
Lotus 1-2-3 Call
Microsoft Multiplan 115
PFS: Plan 78
Supercalc II 145
Supercalc III 2.1 (New) 169
ACCOUNTING
SOFTWARE
Dr. Halo II $99
Energraphics w/o Plotter 170
Energraphics w/Plotter 220
Fontrix 99
Graphwriter/Combo 310
Microsoft Flight Simulator 32
PC Paint Brush 69
PFS Graph 78
Signmaster 145
LANGUAGES
Concurrent PC/Dos Call
Fortran 77 208
Lattice C Compiler 249
Lifeboat Run C Interpreter 89
Microsoft C Compiler 239
Microsoft Fortran 209
Microsoft Macro Assembler 89
Microsoft Pascal Compiler 179
Microsoft Quick Basic 65
Multi Halo 140
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Harvard Project Manager 199
Microsoft Project 150
Super Project 185
Total Harvard Project 245
UTILITIES
Copy II PC 22
Copy II PC Board 79
Copywright 45
Norton Utilities 3.0 52
PC Tools 22
Prokey 4.0 75
Superkey 36
HARDWARE
BPI Accounts Payable .,
BPI Account Receivable
BPI General Accounting
BPI Payroll
Cyma
Dollars and Sense
. 299
. 299
. 299
. 299
Call
. . 95
MBSI Call
Tobias Managing Your Money 95
TCS. Big Four equivalent of Peach-
tree Series 4 - Specially augmented
and customized for your IBM PC
Terminal and Printer - GL, AR, PA,
AP, CP/M-80, CP/M-86 for PC XT,
DOS 1.1, 2.0.
Each Module $65 For All Four $249
INTEGRATED
Enable Call
Smart Software Call
TRANSFER PROGRAMS
Crosstalk XVI 89
Hayes Smartcom II 88
Microsoft Access 149
Move-It 79
Remote 99
GRAPHICS
Chartmaster 220
BUYS OF THE YEAR
Expansion Board to 576K . . . $69
KB5151 Keyboard Equivalent .. 89
Hercules Graphic Board
w/Par Port Equivalent 118
1 Year Warranty - 30 Day
Return Priviledge.
MODEMS
Anchor Express
Hayes 1200
Hayes 1200B w/Software
Hayes 2400
Promodem 1200B w/Software ..
Promodem 1200
RAM
64K 150NS Chips (Set of 9) ....
256K Ram Chips (Set of 9)
BOARDS
AST Advantage
AST Sixpack (384K)
Hercules Color Card
Hercules Graphics Card
J RAM III
Paradise Five Pak w/64K
Paradise Modular Graphics Card
Quadram Board with Par/Ser
and Game Port
Quadcolor I
Sigma Maximizer Multifunction .
Sperry 512K Expansion w/128K . .
STB Chauffeur Board
STB Mono Board
AB Parallel Print Switch
239
Call
Call
605
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309
6.50
39.50
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185
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155
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HARDWARE
COMPUTERS
Corona PC Call
Sperry PC Mono 256K Dual Drive
Serial Port, Clock, MS/DOS 2.11
$1650
IBM PC-AT Call
IBM PC Clone, 256K, Amber Moni-
tor, Hercules Graphics Card Equi-
valent $950
ITT Computers PC Compatible 256k
Dual Drive, Mono, MS/DOS . 1395
ITT XP80286 IBM/PC Compatible,
3 times faster than an XT. 30% faster
than an AT $2650
Zenith 171 Call
PRINTERS
FREE! PRINTER SET SOFTWARE
Purchase an Okidata, Epson, Gemini,
Citizen or Toshiba printer and re-
ceive at no charge a menu driven pro-
gram to set print characteristics or to
make your computer function as a
correcting typewriter. Retail value
$35. Available for most disk formats.
CITIZEN
MSP-10 255
MSP-15 355
MSP-20 329
DAISYWRITER 2000 850
EPSON - Call on all models
JUKI
Juki 6100 349
Juki 6300 685
Juki Tractors 120
NEC
3550 989
8850 1349
P5 Parallel Call
OKIDATA - Call on all models
PANASONIC
1091 239
1092 349
1093 429
KXP3151 410
SILVER REED
EXP 400P 205
EXP 550P 389
EXP 770P 689
STAR MICRONICS
SG-10 Call
SG-15 369
Call for prices on other models
TOSHIBA
1340 499
P351 1075
MONITORS
AMDEK Call for price
Taxan 610 319
Taxan 121 Green 125
Taxan 122 Amber 134
Princeton HX-12 445
Princeton Max 12 170
Samsung TTL, Amber 95
TERMS: Prices include 3% cash discount. Add 3% lor
charge and C.O.D. orders. Shipping on most software is
$5.00. AZ orders *6% sales tax. Personal check - allow ten
(10) days to clear. Prices are subject to change.
TOLL-FREE ORDER LINE 1-800-421-3135
WAREHOUSE DATA PRODUCTS
2701 West Glendale Ave. • Phoenix, AZ 85021
Inquiry 373
What makes it your partner? Like all ambitious achievers
the Panasonic Exec. Partner gets along with others. Namely,
IBM hardware and software.
You'll also accomplish more with the new high-resolution
plasma display. It lasts four times longer, offers clearer defini-
tion and is easier to read than an ordinary screen.
The Exec. Partner's built-in dual mode printer will help
640K. So the Exec. Partner will run the most sophisticated
data base management programs. And its expansion slot
allows you to fulfill the needs of specific applications like
telecommunications and Local Area Networks.
Tomorrow's technology DonoCAIlio
for today's executives. The r€M IdOUl n\*
new Panasonic Exec. Partner. Industrial Company
Inquiry 226
What use is 68000 power
if you can't get at it?
r -
i
You can with the U-MAN!
Look at these languages and tools available (or the
Inquiry 130
V*t*2T
W»*2L A
BOOK REVIEWS
of a university community would have made Back to BASIC
a most enjoyable book.
BOOK REVIEWS
Contact us for other low prices on hardware and software.
Next Day Air Extra
FREE SHIPPING
NO SURCHARGE FOR H OR
Call for latest prices.
20 and 33 MEG INTERNAL AND
EXTERNAL HARD DISK SYSTEMS
20 MEG
33 MEG
Internal
$495
$929
External
$645
$1029
Externals mounted with independent power supply and fan. Fully DOS 2.X or 3X compatible. Both Internals a
and Externals boot from Hard Disk. 33 Meg Internal Disks include extender power supply. The system
comes complete and ready to install with the Hard Disk, Controller, Cables, Manual, Software, and Mounting
Hardware. One Year Warranty.
20 and 33 Meg Hard Disks are available
with combined Floppy/Hard Disk Controller
Half Height Card for additional $75 .
comPAa
256K, 1/360K drive,
10 Meg Internal
Functional equivalent
to a Compaq Plus™
$2549
Now using 3 K " shock-mounted Winchester drives. The
DISK DRIVES
TEAC
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$95
MITSUBISHI
Half-Height, DS/DU
Quantities of 10 or
more $75 each
Call us for competitive prices on larger quantities of RAM chips.
-"-»' + + 4T W + # ♦»
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PRICES AND MACHINES THAT
OUTRUN THE COMPETITION.
PCS LIMITED AT High Performance
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-L -' ';
•m
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Includes: 80286-based System Unit, 102-iKon
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Power Supply, 2 Serials and 1 Parallel Port, and
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Board.
Runs all Major Software written for the IBM PC", PC XT'*, and PC AT 1 *. (Processor) Intel 80286 running at 6MHZ.
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(Processor) 16-bit 8088-2, 4.77 or 6.66MHZ Clock Speed. (Expansion Slots) :8; 7 are available in above configuration.
SOLVE YOUR POWER PROBLEM.
XT POWER 135 W
^r* $89
Fully XT' utmpjiible
One Year Warranty.
Dirrctl) ■ • pi a ■ > power supply in PC™
25 or more $75 each
PC'S LIMITED
Six Function Card
w/384K $149
• l pgradable to 5H*k
• Clock/Calendar
• Software included
Two Year Warranty
Parallel Port
Serial Port
Came Port
Irwin Tape
Backup System
$595
10 or more
$495 each
• Uses Floppy Controller Card
• 10.35 Meg Formatted Capacity
• Used in Compaq Deskpro. -
Also available with external chassis $795
• Half Height
• Low Power
Compaq, TEAC, IBM, Irwin,
Mitsubishi, and Intel arc
registered trademarks of
their respective companies.
All brand names are regis-
tered trademarks. We are an
independent sales or-
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Some quantities may be limited.
PC'S LIMITED reserves the right
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PC'S LIMITED
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All sales-related calls inside Texas - (512) 339-6800
Telex Ne. 9103808386 PC LTD
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Inquiry 280
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 77
TM
$249
Little Board ...
The World's Least Expensive CP/M Engine
CP/M 2.2
INCLUDED
• 4 MHz Z80A CPU, 64K RAM, Z80A
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• 2 RS232C Serial Ports (75-9600 baud
& 75-38, 400 baud), 1 Centronics
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• Power Requirement -5VDC at 75A,
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• Only 5 75 x 7 75 inches, mounts
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• Comprehensive Software Included
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KAYPRO, OSBORNE, MORROW. )
• Menu-based system customization
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OPTIONS
• Source Code
• TurooDOS
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• STD Bus Adapter
TM
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i Works with any RS232C ASCII
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i Compact 7.3 x 6.5 x 10.5 inches,
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i Powerful and Versatile:
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• One or two 400 or 800 KB floppy
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Priced from
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• Comprehensive Software Included
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• Operator-friendly shells, Menu,
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• Read/write and format dozens of
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• Menu-based system customization
DISTRIBUTORS
ARGENTINA: FACTORIAL, SA, (1) 41-0018,
TLX 29408 BEIGIUM CENTRE
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COMPUTER SYSTEMS LTD, (604J 872-7737
ENGLAND: QUANT SYSTEMS,
(01)253-8423, TLX 946240 REF 19003131
FRANCE: EGAL-, (1) 502-1800, TLX 620893
SPAIN: XENIOS INFORMATICA 593-0822,
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MICROCOMPUTERS, (613) 500-0628
BRAZIL: CNC DATA LEADER LTDA,
(41 ) 262-2262, TLX 041-6364 DENMARK:
DANBIT, 103) 66-20-20, TLX 43558
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CONTACT AMPRO COMPUTERS INC ,
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Inquiry 1 9 for End-Users
78 BYTE- DECEMBER 1985 Inquiry 20 for DEALERS ONLY
BOOK REVIEWS
gram itself is the central legal concern. But if the system
is a service, then the hospital sues XYZ for negligence.
However, as Susan Nycum notes, since no human is in-
fallible and no machine perfect, and since small program-
ming errors with catastrophic practical consequences can
go undetected until it is too late, just what constitutes
negligent behavior becomes very hard to determine.
This brings up the subject of codes of conduct and moral
principles in a computerized society. Formal codes have
been written for computer professionals. Reproduced in
Ethical Issues are standards of the British Computer Socie-
ty, the Institute for Certified Computer Professionals, the
Data Processing Management Association, and the
Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). The ACM
divides its principles into two categories: ethical considera-
tions and disciplinary rules. These are further organized
and subsumed by five canons. No ACM member is bound
to observe the ethical considerations or the canons. Only
by disregarding a disciplinary rule can a member be held
accountable. But how often will all of this work?
According to disciplinary rule 5.2.1, a member of the
ACM must inform employers and clients whenever "any
adverse consequences to the public" may follow as a
result from work proposed to him." Sounds fine. But con-
sider this: Since nearly all computer-related work involves
being in front of a video-display terminal, and since VDTs
may be hazardous to your health, then must an ACM
member tell the boss that teaching the new secretary how
to use the word processor may have "adverse conse-
quences"? Strict obedience to proscriptions like this could
bring automated activity to a halt. Furthermore, failure to
adhere to the rules may bring "expulsion," "suspension,"
or "admonition." Even if an individual is caught violating
a disciplinary rule, the punishment might amount to little
more than the proverbial slap on the wrist.
In a brilliant series of thoughts entitled "Professional
Ethics: An Intellectual and Moral Confusion," lohn Ladd
points out that codes of conduct may actually do more
harm than good. Ethical codes are necessarily minimal:
they formulate trie least that needs to be done. This may
incline professionals to not do their best but do just what
the code requires. Perhaps worse, codes of conduct can
stifle the dissenter, the critic, or the creative person and
degenerate into that situation John Stuart Mill called the
"tyranny of the majority."
Throughout this book, question follows question as opin-
ions diverge in what Johnson and Snapper term "an in-
terval of uncertainty" brought about by the new tech-
nology and occupied by a dense intellectual pluralism. It
is just this tolerance of so many different points of view
in a single volume that makes Ethical \ssues in the Use of Com-
puters a valuable and commendable book.
Stan Czarnik is a teacher, musician, and technical specialist. He works
at Information Access Company {The Computer Database. 2265
Carlson Dr.. Suite 5000, Horthbrook. IL 60662).
{continued)
The floppy disk
with the flop proof guarantee.
We put it down in writing. So
every time you insert a JVC
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you know it will be free of mag-
netic defects. It's guaranteed for
life.
Why are we so confident?
Because every JVC Floppy Disk
is made with a durable, excep-
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operate error free for up to ten
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^0*- t Even our
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Inquiry 196
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 79
Inquiry 329
o
Fourth Annual Conference on
INTERACTIVE
INSTRUCTION
DELIVERY
in Education, Training and
Job Performance
February 19-21, 1986
Hyatt Orlando Hotel
Orlando, Florida
Presentations cover applications in:
Videodisc CD/ROM
Microcomputers
Software Development Methodology
Pre-conference tutorials are scheduled for
February 1 7 and 1 8 .
Exhibits of representative technology will be available
to conference registrants in an adjacent area.
For further information contact:
Society for Applied Learning Technology
50CulpeperSt. Dept. B
Warrenton, VA 22186 (703) 347-0055
if*
STAFF-K8
• 86-key keyboard
• Fast repeat
Common Features:
• Both PC & PC-AT compatible encoded
• Low profile design, DIN standard
• Excellent tactile feeling, mechanical
keyswitch
• Double-shot, step sculpture keytops
• Various languages available: English,
German, French. Spanish, Italian,
Swedish
■ IBM is a registered Itadtnark I IBM Corp
STAFF-K9
• 105-key keyboard
• Independent cursor control pad
• Practical lunction keys;
KEY-in-lock, Key Beep, Fast Repeat,
Line-Feed, Pause, Break, Previous
word. Next word
Ms-
MONTEREY
International Corp.
5FI.. No 40. Deli Hwet Street Taipei Taiwan ROC
Phone (02)591-7138
Cable: 'MONTEREY' Taipei
Telex: 25171 MONTEREY
BOOK REVIEWS
IBM PC/8088 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING
Reviewed by Larry Clark
The primary reason I bought a PCjr was to develop a
threaded interpretive language similar to FORTH. I
soon discovered that the 8088's use of segmented mem-
ory addressing introduced new ideas that I could not
readily grasp from the terse, though complete, assembler
manuals. For learning 8088 assembly language. I needed
a more complete explanation. Avtar Singh and Walter A.
Triebel's IBM PC/8088 Assembly language Programming pro-
vides that kind of explanation.
This book's format is "goal directed —at the beginning
of each chapter, the authors outline the ideas to be
covered in order to keep the reader aware of educational
goals that lie ahead. They try to give the beginning as-
sembly-language programmer a good, useful understand-
ing of the 8088. The reader needs a basic mathematical
background to understand the binary and hexadecimal
math sections.
Programmers who need the speed that 8088 assembly-
language programs offer will find this book valuable. It
starts with a discussion of binary and hexadecimal arith-
metic. In a lucid review of basic machine language. Singh
and Triebel do an especially good job of convincing the
reader that hand-coding can be done but is not to be tack-
led for large programs. The majority of the text follows
with an introduction to 8088 assembly-language program-
ming and debugging. The text refers to the IBM version
l.O assembler, but my version 2.0 assembler performed
with no detectable errors; a non-IBM assembler may do
as well, provided it handles standard mnemonics and IBM
pseudo operation codes.
You'll need Debug, the assembler's linker, and enough
memory for the assembler. I recommend two disk drives;
otherwise, you'll have to swap disks frequently.
The book uses Debug, a PC-DOS utility, in the examples.
It is an excellent learning tool. Debug traces show exactly
what an instruction does and so relieves readers of hav-
ing to visualize an instruction's effect on CPU (central pro-
cessing unit) register contents. Listings contained in each
chapter show exactly what each debugging session will
look like. I noted only one omission here that was provid-
ed in the DOS Debug manual— some of the Macro assem-
bler statements cannot be assembled with the line-by-line
assembler in Debug. Only one or two of my sessions
brought this to light, and that was after l left the bounds
of a working example and tried some of the more com-
plex addressing modes.
The authors not only include examples of how to use
the debugger but also demonstrate how to use the as-
sembler and linker. A session on the use of the EDLIN
editor will probably go unused, as most readers will prefer
to use a full-screen editor instead.
An optional disk contains a copy of the book's machine-
run examples. A note in the book says the disk can be
[continued)
80
B YTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 252
The IBM upgrade path.
■ jyP
T
'?>m
, : /0
zs&Vrnn&si??.
SwCi-si*
It's still a great system — in
perfect condition. But now you're
ready to make a deal on your IBM
PC or XT.
Maybe your business needs
have grown, or your new appli-
cation package runs too slow.
Don't dump your present IBM
system. Red River Technology has a
better offer — ATlas — a single-board
plug-in package that transforms
your IBM PC or XT into
a super- AT.
ATlas isnt a semi
compatible plug-in card,
but completely trans-
forms your PC or PC XT
into a 100% IBM PC AT
compatible system.
Consider these features:
• 8 or 10 Mhz 80286
CPU. 50-100% more perfor-
mance than IBM's PC AT (switch
selectable— 6, 8, or 10 Mhz)
• IEEE 802.3 standard LAN
option on the base board (your
choice, StarLAN or Ethernet)
• IBM compatible serial port
• IBM compatible parallel port
• 512K memory standard,
expandable to 1.0 megabyte without
using precious 10 expansion slots
• Three 8-bit slots, use more
of your existing add-in boards
• Five CMOS VLSI gate arrays
eliminate over 60 chips to lower
power consumption and improve
reliability
• CAD based design, highest
quality multilayer board
• Installs in 10 minutes
with nothing but a
regular screwdriver.
Red River Tech-
nology has defined
w state-of-the-art in board-
level computers. So don't take
someone else's best offer for your
IBM PCorXT. Red RiverTechnology
believes an upgrade path should
not be a dead end.
For more information on the
ATlas single-board computers, call
us today, at 817-571-5714.
Assembled and tested board:
$1495 (8 Mhz CPU) $2395 (10 Mhz CPU)
(Specify PC or XT version)
Kit form (includes board, 5 gate arrays,
8 Mhz 80286) $595 (8 Mhz CPU)
Complete Kit
Complete System
CALL 817-571-5714
$ 795
$2195
Quantity discounts available. Dealer and
OEM inquiries welcome. Other unique 8088
and 80186 boards also available. Write
for details.
TERMS: VISA. MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS.
CHECK. MONEY ORDER. $5 SHIPPING AND BANDUNG
PER ORDER. TEXAS RESIDENTS ADD 6% SALES TAX.
Red River Technology, Inc.
Red RiverTechnology. Inc.. DFW West.
4001 W. Airport Fwy.. Suite 500.
Bedford. Texas 76021
Inquiry 312
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. ATlas is a trademark of Red River Technology. Inc.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 81
IBM PC XT Compatible Computer runs
DOS 2.1, 3.1, Lotus, Wordstar, dBase
111, and any known software. XT-Plus
has eight Slots, 640KB memory on
Mother Board.
Limited time special offer: 640KB CPU,
Floppy Controller, Keyboard, Parallel
Port, Serial Port, Game Port, Clock, two
360 KB Disk Drives all for $799
(Suggested Retail Price $1399)
AMERICAN MICRO TECHNOLOGY
(714) 972-2945
TWX 5106003265
IBM PC, XT AT
& COMPATIBLES
at Wholesale Prices
i^^T an IBM PC AT Compatible Computer
^t~2~/ 640K on Board, 1.2MB Disk Drive,
^|iQ 20 MB Disk Drive, Keyboard M995
^__^^_^^__^_^_^___ (Suggested Retail Price $3995 )
640K Ram each .45
128K Ram each 3.50
256K Ram each 2.50
Toshiba Drive 360KB 79.00
1.2MB Disk Drive for AT 129.00
20MB Hard Drive w/Controller and Cables . . . 449.00
10MB Tape Back Up Drive for XT 299.00
10MB Tape B/U Drive for AT 375.00
135 watt Power Supply 79.00
195 watt Power Supply 125.00
FD C with P/P, S/P, Clock & Game Port .... 99.00
AT Mother Board 799.00
XT Mother Board 125.00
Floppy/HD Controller for AT 219.00
AMT ^
(714) 972-2945 *%*'*
TWX 5106003265 ° 9
BOOK REVIEWS
purchased separately for $24.95. I recommend that you
buy the disk because it will save you time and quicken
the learning process. I found only one discrepancy be-
tween the disk and the book.
The examples in the text are generally short and might
not take more than one or two iterations to correct. But
there are 31 examples; it is not hard to imagine being so
slowed down by entering programs that you don't finish
the last chapters, which are the most interesting.
This is a thorough text that delivers the fundamentals
of 8088 programming. The questions at the end of each
chapter served as a gauge of how well I understood the
material. Working examples consist of a source listing, as-
sembler output, and a complete Debug session. You
should have no trouble duplicating the results given in the
text when the proper tools are used.
I found only two obvious errors, but neither stood in
the way of learning about the 8088. On page 5 5, the
authors say that index registers are always combined with
the DS (data segment) register. The iAPX 88 user's manual
disagrees with this, saying the DI index register is limited
to the ES (extra segment) register instead. Second, the
contents of the CS, DS. ES, and SS registers listed in the
Debug sessions never matched those on my PCjr. Ap-
parently the Debug program can adjust the segment at
which a program resides according to the memory avail-
able. I learned in the text that the 8088 supports reloca-
tion by means of segmentation, which could explain why
the programs worked even though they were placed in
memory locations different from those described by the
authors.
The 8088 instructions are explained in groups of similar
instructions, and the simpler instruction groups are fol-
lowed by the more complex types. Among the more in-
teresting examples are the looping instructions similar to
those found in high-level languages.
IBM PC/8088 Assembly Language Programming is more than
400 pages long and is very thorough, but it does not
review macro programming, nor does it completely cover
the pseudo-ops the assembler is capable of using.
The examples not only demonstrate key features and
capabilities of the 8088's assembly language but provide
sample sorting routines and floating-point math routines
as well. The math programs are good introductions that
are extremely interesting. All routines are designed to be
reused by the reader in later programming projects. One
set of examples deals with simple input/output calls to
PC-DOS; other examples deal with the timer chip in the
PC.
The book helped me learn to program the 8088 because
of its organized approach and extensive examples. This
is a good introductory text on 8088 assembly-language
programming. I recommend it if you're ready to plunge
into this challenging branch of microcomputers. ■
Larry Clark (8103 Thornewood Dr.. Hixson. TN 37343) works in
microcomputer systems development and is a robotics instructor.
82 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 16
THE PROFESSIONAL'S CHOICE
Lotus
1-2-3
$309
Lotus
Symphony
$429
dBase III I FrameWork I MultiMate
$369 $369 $239
Word
Perfect
$209
Software
Word Processing Editors
FANCY FONT
$139
FINAL WORD
$189
MICROSOFT WORD
S229
MULTIMATE
$239
MULTIMATE
ADVANTAGE
$299
OFFICE WRITER/
SPELLER
$249
PFS: WRITE
$ 95
SAMNA WORD III
$259
VOLKSWRITER
DELUXE
$159
VOLKSWRITER
SCIENTIFIC
$279
WORD PERFECT 4.0
$209
WORDSTAR
$189
WORDSTAR 2000
$259
WORDSTAR 2000*
$299
WORDSTAR PRO
$259
XYWRITE II*
$199
Database Systems
ALPHA DATA BASE
MANAGER II
CLIPPER
CLOUT V 2.0
CONDOR III
CORNERSTONE
DBASE II
DBASE III
KNOWLEDGEMAN
PC FOCUS
PFS: FILE/PFS:
REPORT
POWERBASE
OUICKCODE III
OUICKREPORT
R BASE 4000
R BASE 5000
REFLEX
REVELATION
$179
$399
$139
$329
$289
$299
$369
$269
$1195
$169
$319
$169
$169
$249
$379
$329
$729
Spreadsheets/
Integrated Packages
ELECTRIC DESK
ENABLE
FRAMEWORK
JAZZ
LOTUS 1-2-3
MULTIPLAN
OPEN ACCESS
SMART SYSTEM
SPREADSHEET
AUDITOR
SUPERCALC 3
SYMPHONY
Accounting
BPI
GREAT PLAINS
IUS EASYBUSINESS
ONE WRITE PLUS
OPEN SYSTEMS
PEACHTREE
REAL WORLD
STAR ACCOUNTING
PARTNER
STAR ACCOUNTING
PARTNER II
$209
$359
$369
$399
$309
$135
$369
$559
$109
$219
$429
$319
$479
$319
$179
$369
$299
$369
$249
$549
Desktop Environments
DESK ORGANIZER $ 79
GEM DESKTOP $ 45
SIDEKICK $ 45
Languages/Utilities
CONCURRENT DOS $189
C86 C COMPILER $299
DIGITAL RESEARCH
C COMPILER $219
OR FORTRAN 77 $219
LATTICE C COMPILER $299
MICROSOFT C
COMPILER $249
MS BASIC COMPILER $249
MS FORTRAN $239
NORTON UTILITIES $ 69
TURBO PASCAL $ 59
XENIX SC.ll
Project Management
HARVARD TOTAL
PROJECT MANAGER $259
MICROSOFT
PROJECT $159
PROJECT SCHEDULER
NETWORK $339
SUPERPROJECT $219
TIMELINE 2.0 $299
Communications/
Productivity Tools
CROSSTALK $105
CROSSTALK MKIV $149
PROKEY $ 89
KEYWORKS $ 69
REMOTE $119
SMARTCOM II $109
SUPERKEY $ 55
Graphics/Statistics
BPS BUSINESS
GRAPHICS
CHARTMASTEFt
CHARTSTAR
DIAGRAM MASTER
EXECUVISION
ENCRGRAPHICS
GEM DRAW
GRAPHWRITER
COMBO
INNOVISION
MS CHART
OVERHEAD
EXPRESS
PC DRAW
PC PAINTBRUSH
PC PAINT
PFS: GRAPH
SIGNMASTER
STATGRAPHICS
STATPAK-NWA
STATPAC-
WALONICK
SYSTAT
$229
$229
$169
$229
$259
$199
$ 89
$359
$329
$159
$109
$249
$ 89
$ 79
$ 95
$165
$595
$329
$349
$419
Multifunction Boards
AST ADVANTAGE
AST 6 PAK PLUS (64K)
AST 6 PAK PLUS (384K)
ORCHID BLOSSOM
(OK)
ORCHID BLOSSOM
$389
$229
$269
$209
$269
RCHID PC TURBO $699
PERSYST TIME SPECTRUM
(OK) $209
PERSYST TIME SPECTRUM
$269
$229
$249
(384K)
ORC
Professional Development
LIGHTYEAR $329
THINK TANK $119
Personal Finance
DOLLARS AND
SENSE $119
HOWARD TAX
PREPARER 85 $195
MANAGING YOUR
MONEY $119
Hardware*
Accessories
CURTIS SURGE
PROTECTORS SC.ll
DATASHIELD BACKUP
POWER SC.ll
GILTRONIX A/B SWITCH SCall
MICROBUFFER INLINE
(64K) SCll
MICROFAZER INLINE
(64K) $219
256K RAM SET $ 49
8087 MATH CHIP $139
(384K)
OUADBOARD (OK)
OUADBOARD (384K)
TECMAR CAPTAIN
(OK) $189
TECMAR CAPTAIN
(364K) $229
TECMAR JR CAPTAIN
(128K) $329
TECMAR JR WAVE (64K) $249
TECMAR WAVE (64K) $209
Display Boards
EVEREX EDGE $319
EVEREX GRAPHICS
EDGE $329
HERCULES GRAPHICS
CARD $309
HERCULES COLOR
CARD $159
PARADISE MODULAR
GRAPHICS $275
PARADISE
MULTIDISPLAY CARD $285
PERSYST BOB
$389
PRINCETON SCAN
DOUBLER
$199
SIGMA COLOR 400
$529
STB CHAUFFER
$279
STB GRAPHICS
PLUS II
$309
TECMAR GRAPHICS
MASTER
$459
TSENG ULTRA PAK
$429
TSENG ULTRA PAK-S
$369
Emulation Boards
AST
Sen
CXI 3278/9 Plus
$959
$799
IRMA
IRMALINE
$999
IRMAPRINT
Scii
Displays
AMDEK 31 0A $169
PRINCETON HX-12 $459
PRINCETON MAX-12E $179
PRINCETON SR-12 $589
PRINCETON HX-12E $C*I
PRINCETON HX-S SCII
QUADRAM
AMBERCHROME $179
TAXAN 122 AMBER $159
TAXAN 420/440 $399/599
ZENITH 124 AMBER $146
ZENITH 135 COLOR $CII
Modems
AST REACH 1200 $369
HAYES 1200 $389
HAYES 1200B $365
HAYES 2*00 $609
TRANSNET 1000 $299
VENTEL 1200
HALF CARD $369
WATSON $449
Mass Storage/Backup
ALLOY MT25 TAPE (EXT) $895
CORE AT PLUS SCII
IOMEGA BERNOULLI
BOX-NEWI $2549
IRWIN 310A 10MB TAPE
(EXT) $650
IRWIN 110D 10MB TAPE
(INT) $549
SYSGEN IMAGE $850
TALLGARSS TG5025 $2845
TECMAR OIC-60H TAPE
(EXT) $1499
TECMAR QIC-BOAT TAPE
Networks
AST PC NET
CORVUS NET
ORCHID PC NET
3COM
Sen
$CM
SCall
SCII
(INT)
Printers/Plotters
DIABLO
EPSON FX-85
EPSON FX-185
EPSON LQ-1500
HP 7475A PLOTTER
JUKI 6300
JUKI 6100
NECP3
NEC 3550
OKIDATA
OUME SPRINT 1155
TOSHIBA PI340
TOSHIBA P351
Input Devices
KEYTRONIC 5151
KOALA
MICROSOFT MOUSE
PC MOUSE W
PAINTBRUSH
$1199
$129
Smartmodem
1200B
$365
Smartmodem
2400
$609
•CALL FOR SHIPPING COSTS
LOWEST PRICE
GUARANTEE!!
We will match current
nationally advertised
prices on most products.
Call and compare.
free
Diskette
Library
Case
with your order ^
TERMS:
Checks— allow 14 days to clear Credit processing— add 3%. COD orders— cash,
MO or certified check— add $5.00- Shipping and handling UPS surface— add $3.00
per item (UPS BlueS8.00 per item). NY State Residents— add applicable sales tax
All prices subject to change.
1-S00-221-1260
In New York State call (718) 438-6057
ussm
MON.-THURS. 9:00AM-8:00PM
SUN. & FRI. 9:00AM-4:00PM
Softline Corporation
P.O. Box 729, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230
TELEX: 421047 ATLNU I
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 83
© 1985 ATiT Information Svstems
ONLYA NETWORK
THE CENTER OF YOUR EXPANDING
A local area network. Sure it can integrate some of your
stand-alone equipment. But what about the departmental
systems you have? And what about next year? Will it be able
to handle new applications that come along? Can it grow? Is
it a long-term solution or just a quick fix?
The Information Systems Network from AT&T is the data
network that can meet your immediate and long-term needs.
It's the only network open and flexible enough to integrate
the equipment and systems you have now, and willingly
accept what the future might bring. It's the data network
that can expand with your business— grow from a local to a
corporate-wide network.
You can build a strong foundation
Different systems— Incompatible hardware from differ-
ent vendors— A few stand-alone pieces here and there— ISN
can tie it all together.
ISN's open architecture lets it act as the backbone data
network that integrates your disparate systems and
smaller networks.
Its unique wiring system of twisted pair and fiber optics
allows ISN to support the equipment you have now, and what
♦Ethernet is a registered trademark of Xerox Corp. **IBM is a registered trademark of International
you'll buy later. You can easily and economically add and
rearrange equipment. Plus, no matter how far apart devices
are, with ISN, you still get maximum network performance.
So once your backbone network is in place, the possibili-
ties are endless. Grow upward, outward, backwards and
sideways. With ISN, your options are always open.
You can break the ties that bind you
At the local level, ISN is a hierarchical star network with
a fast-switching Packet Controller at the hub. The Packet
Controller is linked to all devices in your network and man-
ages all network communications.
So ISN can set up communication links between all your
equipment and systems. AT&TSystem 85 and AT&T System 75
PBXs, mini-computers and mainframes, isolated Ethernet*
systems, AT&T STARLAN NETWORK and 3BNET,
smart and dumb terminals , even equipment from IBM —
ISN gets it all on speaking terms. Ail working even harder
for you.
ISN protects your 3270 investment. It lets your Bisync
terminals access multiple IBM** hosts. Low-cost dumb
terminals and personal computers can do the same. Syn-
Business Machines Corp.
"•"w**,
fca^i
ASYKHRMMM.
HOST
THIS OPEN AND FLEXIBLE CAN BE
UNIVERSE.
chronous and asynchronous traffic can travel through your
network with the same speed and efficiency.
With ISN, you're never locked into one vendor or one
location. Since ISN uses the same technology for local and
wide-area networking, its growth potential is limitless.
Linking multiple Packet Controllers lets you start with
one ISN and grow across a premises. Add another ISN and
grow across the city, or across the country. There's nothing
holding you back.
You can handle it all
No matter how large your network becomes, ISN still
provides fast, reliable communications between all users.
With a high backplane and fiber rate of 8.64 mbps, and a very
efficient packet structure, ISN maintains a high throughput
rate even when traffic is at its peak.
Long messages or bursty transmissions— ISN's been
engineered to handle it all. A unique centralized short bus
and perfect scheduling access method permit messages to
travel through the network almost instantaneously. And
arrive with their integrity intact.
Premises-wide or nationwide, ISN puts you in command.
No matter how large your network gets, you choose the
means of control— centralized or distributed.
"Xbu've made the right connection
AT&T has a long history of solving complicated network-
ing problems with clear-cut, intelligent solutions. We make
the pieces fit.
We work with you every step of the way. Our professional
sales and service people are trained to plan, design and main-
tain a network that will meet your business needs.
ISN reflects AT&T's better approach to office network-
ing. To learn why it's the right choice for your business, call
your AT&T Information Systems Account Executive, or
1800247-1212.
AT&T
The right choice.
EVENT QUEUE
December 1985
Data Processing Courses,
Hartford. CT. The Hartford
Graduate Center, 275 Wind-
sor St., Hartford, CT 06120,
(203) 548-2470. December
The IBM PC Data Com-
munications Survival
Course, various sites
throughout the U.S. Data-
Tech Institute. Lakeview
Plaza, POB 2429, Clifton, NJ
07015, (201) 478-5400.
December
Micro to Mainframe
Seminars, Atlanta, GA. The
MOM Corp., Two Northside
75, Atlanta, GA 30318. (800)
241-1 170; in Georgia, (404)
3 51-2902. December
Testing Computer Soft-
ware, various sites
throughout the U.S. U.S.
Professional Development
Institute. 1620 Elton Rd..
Silver Spring, MD 20903,
(301) 44 5-4400. December
Office Automation Design
& Management, various
sites throughout the U.S.
Thomas Wilds Associates
Inc.. POB 1 1 120. Greenwich.
CT 06830, (212) 986-2 515.
December-March
Second Annual
Washington, DC. Eastern
Simulation Symposium:
What's New in Software,
Crystal City. VA. The Soci-
ety for Computer Simula-
tion. POB 2228. La JoIIa. CA
92038, (714) 459-3888.
December 3
Second Annual Bits &
Bytes National Computer
Show, Dallas. TX. Informa-
tion Processing Group, Suite
305, 87 North Raymond
Ave.. Pasadena, CA 91103,
(818) 792-511 1. December 6-8
Computer Graphic Arts
85, New York. NY. Pratt
Center for Computer
Graphics in Design, 9
Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY
10532. December 8- 1 1
Fall Industrial Engineer-
ing Conference: Inte-
grating People and Tech-
nology, Chicago, IL, ME
Registrar, 2 5 Technology
Park/Atlanta, Norcross, GA
30092, (404) 449-0460,
December 8-1 1
Computer Career Conven-
tion, Los Angeles, CA.
Shomex Productions, Suite
310, 2601 Ocean Park Blvd.,
Santa Monica, CA 90402,
(213) 450-8831,
December 10-11
1985 Videodisc, Optical
Disk, & CD-ROM Con-
ference and Exposition,
Philadelphia, PA, Meckler
Publishing, 1 1 Ferry Lane
W, Westport, CT 06880,
(203) 226-6967.
December 10-12
Hi Tech Update 85.
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Conference Coll Inc., 1 138
Sherman Dr., Ottawa. On-
tario K2C 2M4. Canada.
December 11-12
DEXPO West 85: The
Eighth National DEC-
Compatible Exposition,
Anaheim, CA, Expoconsul
International Inc., 55
Princeton-Hightstown Rd.,
Princeton Junction, NI
08550, (609) 799-1661.
December 11-13
1985 Winter Simulation
Conference. San Francisco,
CA. The Society for Com-
puter Simulation, POB
1 7900, San Diego, CA
92117. December 11-13
Winter National Design
Engineering Show and
Conference, Anaheim. CA.
Winter National Design
Engineering Show, Cahners
Exposition Group. 999 Sum-
mer St., Stamford, CT
06905, (203) 964-8287.
December 11-13
Data Communications and
Networking for the IBM
PC and Other Personal
Computers, Denver. CO.
Software Institute of
America. 8 Windsor St.,
Andover, MA 01810. (617)
470-3880. December 12-13
First International Con-
ference on Supercom-
puting Systems, Tarpon
Springs, FL. Supercomputing
Conference. POB 639. Silver
Spring, MD 20901, (301)
589-8142. December 16-20
Catalogs and brochures for up-
coming courses and seminars
are available from the follow-
ing:
Catalog of Personal Com-
puter Courses, American
Management Association,
135 West 50th St., New York,
NY 10020.
Center for Advanced
Professional Education
Seminars. Center for Ad-
vanced Professional Educa-
tion. Suite 110, 1820 East
Garry St., Santa Ana. CA
92705, (714) 261-0240.
Communications/Elec-
tronics Short Courses.
The George Washington
University, School of
Engineering and Applied
Science, Washington, DC
20052, (800) 424-9773 (U.S.),
(800) 53 5-4567 (Canada), or
(202) 676-6106 (DC).
Communications/Microcom-
puter Curriculum, Datapro
Educational Services,
Datapro Research Corp.,
1805 Underwood Blvd.,
Delran, NJ 0807 5.
Computer Competence
Seminars and Professional
Development Seminars,
Boston University
Metropolitan College, 75 5
Commonwealth Ave., Boston,
MA 02215.
Course Calendars, In-
tegrated Computer Systems,
6305 Arizona Place. POB
4 5405. Los Angeles. CA
9004 5, (213) 4 1 7-.
IF YOU WANT your organization's public activities listed in BYTE's Event
Queue, we need to know about them at least four months in advance. Send
information about computer conferences, seminars, workshops, and courses
to BYTE. Event Queue. POB 372. Hancock. NH 03449.
Digital Consulting
Associates Inc. Seminars.
Software Institute of
America Inc.. 8 Windsor St.,
Andover. MA 01810.
Information Processing
Series, QED Information
Sciences Inc., QED Plaza,
POB 181, Wellesely, MA
02181.
Intensive Seminars for
Professional Development,
Worcester Polytechnic In-
stitute, Office of Continuing
Education, Higgins House,
Worcester, MA 01609. (617)
793-5517. ■
86 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
The world's best selling monochrome
graphics card for the IBM PC.
There are more Hercules "
Graphics Cards in more IBM*
PCs, XTs and ATs than any
other monochrome graphics
card in the world.
Over a quarter of a million
demanding users around the
world use a Hercules Graphics
Card to improve the perfor-
mance of their software.
The Lotus* 1-2-3* Booster.
Consider Lotus 1-2-3.
Hercules gives an off-the-shelf
copy of 1-2-3
the highest
resolution
possible
on an IBM
PC, XT or AT. More 1-2-3
users choose the Hercules
Graphics Card to get crisper
text and sharper graphics
than any other monochrome
graphics card.
And we bring the same
performance to other integrat-
ed programs like Symphony™
Framework," and SuperCalc*3.
But we don't stop there.
The Hercules Graphics Card
improves all kinds of software.
Like Microsoft* Word, a
word processor that enables
you to display text with sub-
scripts, superscripts and italics
Or pfs : Graph, an easy-to-
use business graphics program
that converts your data into
presentation quality graphs.
Or Microsoft' Flight Simu-
lator, the high flying game for
the overworked executive.
Or our own Graph X," a
library of graphics sub-
routines that eases graphics
programming.
Or AutoCAD ," a computer
aided design program that
offers features normally asso-
ciated with expensive CAD
systems.
And we supply free soft-
ware with each card
to do hi-res graph-
ics using the PC's
BASIC interpreter.
State-Of-The-Art Hardware.
The Hercules Graphics
Card gives you graphics res-
olution of 720h x 348v and a
parallel printer port. Our
unique static RAM buffer pro-
vides sharp 9 x 14 characters
and flicker-free scrolling. Our
exclusive safety features help
prevent damage
to your monitor.
State-of-the-art
custom IC technology
delivers unsurpassed reli-
ability. Ordinary graphics cards
use up to 30 ICs to do what one
Hercules IC does. By using
fewer parts, we reduce the pos-
sibility of component failure.
Which is one reason we
warranty the Hercules
Graphics Card for two years.
Unbeatable reliability.
Advanced technology. Proven
by over a quarter of a million
users. Why settle for anything
less than Hercules?
Call 1-800-532-0600 Ext 408
for the name of a Hercules
dealer nearest you and we'll
rush you our free info kit.
Hercules.
We're strong on graphics.
Address: 25B0 Ninth St., Berkeley, CA 94710 Ph: 415 540-6000 Telex: 754063. Trademarks/Owners: Hercules, Graph X/Hereules; 1-2-3, Symphony/Lotus; IBM, XT,
AT/IBM; Framework/Ashton-Tate; SuperCalc/Sorcim-IUS; Microsoft/Microsoft; pfs:/Software Publ; AutoCAD/AutoDesk.
Inquiry 165
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 87
Discover what 60,000
Discover the finest peripherals available in terms of features, reliability and
price/performance. Corporations like IBM, General Motors and Exxon buy
peripheral equipment from Qubie', and have for years. Check some of your
old back issues of PC — we've been satisfying PC owners since 1 982.
Discover low prices, with service and support unparalleled in the
microcomputer industry. Our 30 day No Risk Guarantee and 48 Hour
Turnaround on warranty repairs is proof our products are first rate. We
stand behind what we sell. We also offer our exclusive Preferred Customer
Plan with 24 hour repairs and 24 months of coverage.
Discover money-saving prices that are the total prices. No
small print telling you to add up for credit card charges or
shipping and handling. Our prices include surface UPS
charges and insurance. In a hurry? 2-day air UPS service
is available.
Then discover it takes more than a low price to keep
customers satisfied. We answer your questions and
concerns before and after you buy.
The Staff of Qubie'
HARD DISK
SUBSYSTEMS
PC20 (Internal) S599
PC20E (External) S749
With Spooling Tape Backup, Add $400
20 Megabyte Capacity • Boot
From The Hard Disk -- No
Software Patches Or Drivers
To Install • Runs All The
Popular Software-DOS 2.0
Or Later • Low Power Con-
sumption • 5 1/4" Controller
Card • High Reliability And
Durability -- Specially Plated
Drives • Faster Access Time
NEW
AT ENHANCEMENT KIT
BT44 Hard Drive ft
AT4X4Plus (51ZK) $1375
44 Megabyte Drive • Runs
All The Popular AT Software
• 28 msec. Access Time •
Voice Coil Driven Heads
with Closed Loop Servo
Positioning • Full-Height
Unit • No Extra Chips Needed
Than XT -Changeable
Interleave Value • Full-
-Height and Half-Height
Bezels • Includes Cables,
1 dir "Visual Shell" and
Zy INDEX "Info Searcher"
Software
External Model (PC20E)
Includes Case And Power
Supply • Auxiliary Power
Supply For Internal Model
(PCPWR) Available
88 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
PC owners now know.
300/1200 BAUD MODEMS
PC212A/1200 (Internal) $179
212A/1200E (External) $199
Auto-Dial, Auto-Answer,
Bell 103/212A Modems •
Fully Hayes Compatible,
Runs Crosstalk, Sidekick, Etc.
• Internal Modem Includes
External RS232-C Serial
Port And PC-TALK III
Software • External Has
Eight Status Indicators Lamps
NEW
And Front Snap Hatch For
Quick Switch Access • Both
Include Instruction Manual
And Modular Phone Cord •
Shielded Cable For External
Modems $19 (Specify Type)
No Bisk Guarantee
If you are not completely
satisfied with your pur-
chase you return it within
30 days of purchase for a
complete refund, including
the cost to send it back. If
you can get any dealer or
competitor to give you the
same No Risk Guarantee, buy
both and retun the one you
don't like.
AT MULTIFUNCTION CABD
AT4X4Plns (1281) $265
AT4X4Plns (5121) $295
Memory Sockets For Adding
Up To 4 Megabytes • 1
Standard and 3 Optional,
Serial Communications Ports
• Parallel Printer Port •
Game Port Option
PC MULTIFUNCTION CABD
BT6Plus (641) $147.50
BT6Plns (384E) $197.50
Memory Sockets For Adding
Up To 384K • Parallel Printer
Port • Asynchronous Serial
Communications Port •
BTPak Software (Disk
Emulation and Printer
Spooling) • Battery-
Powered Clock/Calendar •
Optional Game Port •
Includes Dual Mounting
Bracket
BGB & MONOCHROME MONITORS
with Tilt/Swivel Base!
RGB Color HR31-200 $399
RGB for EGA HR31-350 $499
Mono. Green HR39 $139
Mono. Amber HR134 $149
RGB Color Monitors Feature
.31mm Dot Pitch And Large
14" Screen. HR3 1-200
Compatible With IBM Color
Graphics Adapter (640x200)
• HR3 1-350 Compatible
With Enhanced Graphics
Adapter (640x350) •
Monochrome Monitors Have
IBM Compatible 720x348
Resolution On 12" Diagonal
Screen.
For fastest delivery, send cashier's check,
money order, or order by MasterCard/
Visa. Personal checks allow 18 days to
clear. Company purchase orders
accepted, call for prior authorization.
California residents add 6% sales tax.
Hours: M -F 8 am - 5 pm PTZ
Sat 8 am - 12 pm PTZ
VISA
London (01) 223-4569
Paris (01) 321-5316
Sydney (02) 579-3322
Canada (403) 434-9444
Outside California
800-821-4479
Inside California
805-987-9741
QUBIE
Department B
4809 Calle Alto
Camarillo, California 93010
Inquiry 307
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 89
-
•
"
i
>t oe
BUTE
Features
Ciarcias Circuit Cellar:
Turnkey Bulletin-Board System
by Steve Garcia 93
Programming Proiect: A SIMPL
Compiler, Part I : The Basics
by ionathan Amsterdam 106
Product Description: The Tandy 600
and the Tandy 3000
by G. Michael Vose 118
English Recognition
by Roy E. Kimbrell 125
Scientific Applications Software
by }ohn C. Nash 145
Programming Insight Virtual
Fielding in Microsoft BASIC
by C. R. ). Currie 155
Programming Insight
Travesty with Database
by Neil J. Rubenking 161
IN THE CIRCUIT CELLAR this month, Steve gives us a state-of-the-art bulletin-
board system. This particular BBS is made up of his last two projects: the SB180
single-board computer (September and October) and the MOSART chip from
Xecom (November). This month's article is both a tutorial on bulletin boards
and a functional expansion for people who have built the SB 180. Incidentally,
BYTE is setting up an SB180 bulletin-board system for internal use.
This month lonathan Amsterdam begins his three-part series on the con-
struction of a compiler for a high-level language. This first part deals with the
basics of the compiler, including a description of SIMPL, his programming
language.
A visit to Fort Worth, Texas, gave BYTE's Mike Vose a chance to see two
recent releases from Tandy. The Tandy 600 is a portable with the features users
of the Model 100 and Tandy 200 most often requested: more memory, a disk
drive, and an 80-column screen. The Tandy 3000 is an IBM PC AT clone that
Tandy claims is faster, and it is priced as low as $2 599.
English is hardly ever used to communicate with computers. This is unfor-
tunate, because English can be very effective: it gives you a variety of ways
to express compiler actions with a minimum of training and program interac-
tion. In "English Recognition," Roy Kimbrell describes how you can apply
understanding to an application.
John Nash tells us to consider three things when trying to choose scientific
applications software: the purpose of the package, the style in which it's
presented, and its overall quality. He also provides a list of various sources
of information to help us in our search.
C. R. I. Currie describes a technique for handling files with record lengths
that are more than a sector on Microsoft BASIC systems. If your system can
automatically handle variable-length records of a size less than the system's
maximum, you can use this technique. It works well on both 8-bit and 16-bit
versions of Microsoft BASIC.
"Travesty with Database" is the third travesty-generator program that we
have had since November 1984 when we ran the original, "A Travesty Generator
for Micros" by Hugh Kenner and Joseph O'Rourke. This new version, which
the author has named Breakdown, is written in Turbo Pascal, and it improves
performance and avoids rereading the input text by storing the frequency in-
formation in a database.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 91
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BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 235
CIARCIA'S CIRCUIT CELLAR
TURNKEY
BULLETIN-BOARD
SYSTEM
by Steve Ciarcia
A functional cost-effective expansion
for those who have built the SB 180
You might have noticed
that the theme of this
issue is computer con-
ferencing. It is no mere
coincidence that this
month's Circuit Cellar proj-
ect has something to do
with communication. Since I have just
finished presenting the SB180 single-board
computer and a single-chip modem as
separate projects, it is only natural to com-
bine the two to produce something grander.
The concept of electronic messaging and
information exchange has been revolu-
tionized by low-cost computers. Not too
long ago, only expensive mainframes could
function in such a capacity. Now, any com-
puter with a disk drive and a modem can
be configured to perform basic communica-
tion functions.
The most typical personal computer com-
munication configuration is the electronic
bulletin-board system (BBS). While 1 will ex-
plain it in greater detail later, a BBS is de-
signed to exchange messages, data, or pro-
grams. It can be either public or private.
While the quality of the information be-
ing exchanged sometimes comes into ques-
tion, bulletin boards serve a useful function
that could not otherwise be performed
without great expense. I like to think of
them as a 24-hour answering service that
says more than "Sorry, can I take a mes-
sage?'' Callers with the proper access
authority can receive private information
left only for them, perform tasks within the
computer system, and leave messages for
specific third parties who will also call the
BBS.
Computer experimenters discovered the
entertaining aspects of bulletin boards years
ago. However, such versatile message-listing
and information-retrieval systems have now
assumed important business applications.
For example, field service and sales person-
nel away from the office now have a way
to stay in contact. Or the workday customer-
service line into the company can become
a BBS after hours so that customers feel at-
tended to on a full-time basis.
The limiting factors in business use of
bulletin boards, either public or private,
have been price and start-up effort. While
a minimally configured computer with BBS
software and a modem can be assembled
for about $2 500, you still have to gather the
components and integrate the software.
With few exceptions, the concept of a truly
turnkey BBS has not emerged. Because
{continued)
Steve Ciarcia (pronounced "see-ARE-see-ah") is an
electronics engineer and computer consultant with ex-
perience in process control, digital design, nuclear in-
strumentation, and product development. He is the
author of several books about electronics. You can
write to him at POB 582, Glastonbury. CT 06033.
COPYRIGHT© 1985 STEVEN A. CIARCIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 93
CIRCUIT CELLAR
most BBS software is generic rather
than designed for a specific hardware
configuration, you must port the BBS
software and install the device drivers
for your system's peripheral devices.
The real definition of the words "port"
and install'' is time. When the hard-
ware configuration and the software
operating system are explicitly known,
it is much easier to build a turnkey
BBS.
This month, I'm combining the
SB 1 80 single-board computer, pre-
sented in the September and October
issues, and Xecom's MOSART chip,
described in last month's column.
When combined with some fancy
software, these two projects become
a state-of-the-art turnkey BBS.
The MOSART and associated com-
ponents are mounted on a printed-
circuit board that plugs into the
SB180's I/O (input/output) expansion
bus and is called a COMM180 expan-
sion board. This MOSART-based BBS,
unlike most others, can understand
Touch-Tone inputs and give voice
responses.
Unlike the COMM180 BBS software
(explained in detail later), which is
specific to the SB180. my discussion
and descriptions are intended to be
somewhat generic. You may or may
not decide to build the exact BBS I am
outlining, but you will gain some
benefit by understanding the salient
points of BBS configurations. This par-
ticular BBS requires a minimum of
computer knowledge.
To give you some real-time evalua-
tion of its capabilities, I have installed
a working SB180/COMM180 BBS in
Connecticut that you can call for a
demonstration. If you like this direct
line to me and there aren't thousands
of messages to answer, I will establish
it as a continuing Circuit Cellar BBS
where you can get past, present, and
future project information. More on
this later.
Turnkey BBS
The primary difference between an
SB180/COMM180 system and any
other lies in the unique combination
of hardware and software being used.
I intend this article both as a tutorial
on bulletin boards and as a functional
cost-effective expansion for those of
you who have built the SB180. You
may elect to not use the prepackaged
bulletin-board software that I will
describe and instead use software
available in the public domain to set
up a bulletin board. That is a viable
option. However, the Term III/Z-MSG
software is available preconfigured for
the SB180/COMM180 combination
and can be run out of the box.
Essentially, this software is a turnkey
electronic mail and file-transfer sys-
tem. To use it, you merely place the
disk into your SB180/COMM180 com-
puter system, turn on the terminal,
hook up a telephone line, and give it
some electricity. You then make your
decision as to what you want to use
the bulletin board for.
Naturally, you can personalize the
system to a large extent if you want.
Since the software is modular, adding
or deleting modules will let you con-
figure any desired functions. Before
getting down to details, let me first
discuss a few more features of the Cir-
cuit Cellar SB180 turnkey bulletin-
board system (TKBBS).
TKBBS Features
The features are grouped into four
major areas: electronic mail, file trans-
fer, voice response (not voice recog-
nition), and DTMF (dual-tone, multiple-
frequency) control.
Electronic mail provides the capa-
bility of leaving messages for other
people. Messages, which usually con-
sist of ASCII (American Standard
Code for Information Interchange)
characters, are made up of a sender's
name, addressee's name, subject, and
message text. Sending someone an
electronic message is similar in prin-
ciple to sending them a letter.
File transfer is a technique for the
transmission or reception of files and
is usually referred to as downloading
and uploading from the point of view
of the TKBBS. The TKBBS will support
file-transfer protocols like XMODEM,
Kermit, CIS (CompuServe), and XON/
XOFF. Until now, it was highly im-
probable that this wide selection of
protocols would be available in one
software package, but the TKBBS has
them all.
Finally, the voice-response feature
of the Xecom 1203 MOSART internal
LPC (linear predictive coding) speech
synthesizer is available for your use
as well as a wide variety of DTMF-
decoding functions of the MOSART
A Little History
A short history lesson will help us ap-
preciate what it takes to make a turn-
key bulletin-board system. The TKBBS
traces its roots back to the first com-
puterized bulletin-board system. Al-
though access to computers via tele-
phone lines and modems has existed
for 20 years or so, this had been done
only for time-sharing mainframe com-
puters and the military until personal
computers appeared. Personal com-
puters made their debut in the mid-
dle 1970s, based on the Intel 8080
microprocessor and others. In 1977.
Ward Christensen became interested
in using a modem with his personal
computer. He wrote an assembly-lan-
guage program called MODEM,
which allowed a microcomputer to
send and receive characters via the
modem and telephone line. This was
during the time when modems usual-
ly ran at 110 bits per second (bps),
and a 300-bps modem was con-
sidered fast.
MODEM was a program intended to
be operated by a person— nothing
about it was automatic. It also incor-
porated a protocol for transferring
files. This protocol would send a file
128 bytes at a time. Because tele-
phone lines are subject to transmis-
sion errors, it ensured that each
128-byte block was received properly
by the destination. If an error was
detected in a 128-byte block, that
block was retransmitted until the
receiver detected no errors.
MODEM was placed in the public
domain, where it was eventually
enhanced by other people, becoming
MODEM7. To this day, the popularity
and widespread acceptance of the
file-transfer protocol embodied in the
original MODEM can be traced to
Christensen's placing the program in
the public domain. And the prece-
94 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
CIRCUIT CELLAR
dent of placing communications soft-
ware in the public domain has been
followed to this day by many authors.
Dave laffe. meanwhile, envisioned
another use of his personal computer
for communications. Instead of a
situation where two people used
MODEM on each computer, he pic-
tured a scenario where an unattended
computer could be accessed by a per-
son using MODEM. When accessed,
the unattended computer would let
the caller access the CP/M operating
system. Callers would be able to per-
form all the functions supported by
CP/M as though they were with the
unattended computer, even though
they could be anyplace in the world
that had telephone lines. The result of
his work in this area was an assembly-
language program called BYE.
After laffe wrote BYE, Christensen
began work on yet another program,
this one intended to function as a
message system. Its purpose was to
let callers accessing a computer using
BYE leave messages for other callers
or the owner of that computer. The
resulting program was named CBBS.
which stands for computer bulletin-
board system. He saw it as the elec-
tronic equivalent of the bulletin board
in a supermarket or other public
place.
With these three programs, Chris-
tensen and (affe invented the BBS.
Another significant early develop-
ment was a program called XMODEM
by Keith Petersen, which let the unat-
tended computer using BYE send and
receive files using the protocol im-
plemented in MODEM. This protocol
is more widely known today as the
XMODEM protocol, although it has
been referred to as the Christensen
protocol or MODEM protocol with
equal validity.
Today s Public Domain
Bulletin boards have progressed con-
siderably beyond those first imple-
mentations. One of the significant
changes has been the introduction of
security to the bulletin-board soft-
ware. In the first implementations of
BYE, all the commands of CP/M were
available to anyone calling the system.
Thus, anyone could erase a file. This
allowed unauthorized users to
penetrate bulletin boards, and system
integrity became an important issue.
The first elements of security were
added by introducing ZCPR1, an early
forerunner of ZCPR3. Ultimately,
many other sysop (system operator)
and user functions were added.
Among them, BBS software now
keeps track of time, which prevents
visitors from overstaying their
welcome. This means that the system
can limit a user's access to a length
of time determined by the sysop.
Early versions of BYE required ex-
tensive programming knowledge and
expertise in the inner workings of
CP/M. It has evolved into a program
that uses advanced software tech-
niques but is much easier to set up.
Although BYE remains somewhat
complicated and could not be recom-
mended for a novice user, it has been
extensively enhanced and is an ex-
cellent example of the powerful soft-
ware available in the public domain.
XMODEM also has been enhanced
significantly, and it currently logs file-
transfer activities and prevents certain
types of system security com-
promises.
The concept of a message system
first introduced by CBBS has been
greatly improved. Modern message
systems allow both private (can be
read only by the sender and ad-
dressee) and public (anyone can read)
messages. Configuration information
about the caller— like how many char-
acters per line can be displayed,
privileges while logged onto the sys-
tem, and more— is recorded along
with the name and password. Exten-
sive menu structures can be created
or changed without requiring recom-
pilation or reassembly of the mes-
sage-system program itself. Catego-
ries of users can be defined separate-
ly, with each category having different
privileges when logged onto the
system.
Modems have also evolved signifi-
cantly since 1977. The transmission
rate has increased from 1 10/300 bps
to 2400 bps, with the hardware cost
remaining the same. Also, modems
A significant change
to bulletin-board
software has been the
introduction of security.
are considerably more intelligent,
with the ability to determine the
stages of call progression and report
them back to the computer or the
user as well as dialing the desired
telephone number.
And last, but not least, have been
the corresponding improvements in
the software run by callers on their
own computers when calling other
computers running BYE and
XMODEM. These programs take the
place of the original MODEM. Cur-
rently available programs, like
MDM740 by Irv Hoff or MEX by Ron
Fowler, possess advanced features
like automatic redial until connection
is established, printer buffering for
slow printers, and much more.
The programs mentioned in the
preceding paragraphs are available
for the price of a telephone call from
many of the thousands of bulletin
boards across North America. It is
quite possible for SB180 owners to
put together their own BBS using
these programs, if they have the ap-
propriate technical expertise.
1 did not use public-domain soft-
ware in the SB 180 TKBBS because this
is a "how to" article instead of a "what
if" article. As such, 1 am under certain
legal restrictions.
My overriding determination is to
provide a true turnkey system that
supports the best features of the
SB 180 and the MOSART and can be
easily implemented by software
novices like me. 1 don't have the time
to delve into the inner workings of
various communication packages and
port them to my computer ("port" is
the hackers' word for withdrawing
from society while integrating a piece
of copied software). There's a point in
the evolution of bulletin boards where
{continued)
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 95
CIRCUIT CELLAR
we simply want to take it out of the
box and plug it in. '
Most of the public-domain BBS pro-
grams are intended for generic com-
puter systems and would not directly
support the MOSART on the
COMM180 (they will if you use a
stand-alone modem plugged into the
SB180's modem port). To use them.
1 would have to modify the original
software and distribute the new rou-
tines to the public through the Circuit
Cellar.
Support to this degree unfortunate-
ly presents a legal problem. While we
all think of public-domain software as
free, that is not a license for it to be
copied and distributed. Like the soft-
ware I frequently supply with articles,
authors often copyright their work but
allow end users to make one copy of
it for their "personal and noncom-
mercial use." By modifying and dis-
tributing thousands of copies of so-
called public-domain software, I might
overlook someone's copyright and
find myself in a legal jam.
+5V
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POWER
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HEADSET
MIC (COUPLER)
EARPHONE
Figure 1: The schematic diagram of the Circuit Cellar COMM180 modem expansion board.
96 BYTE- DECEMBER
CIRCUIT CELLAR
Intelligent individuals with more
than modest software knowledge
should not be deterred from doing
what I cannot. By all means, down-
load CBBS or some other software
and use it on the SB 180. Being CP/M-
compatible, the SB180 should require
virtually no modification if you imple-
ment the BBS with a Hayes (or Hayes-
compatible) modem. Unfortunately,
for me the only preventive measure
is original composition and absolute
knowledge of the distribution license.
For that reason, Term 111 and Z-MSG
have been specifically adapted to sup-
port the SB180/COMM180 BBS.
What Is a BBS For?
Public bulletin boards have generally
specialized in certain areas. Examples
are systems specializing in the upload-
ing or downloading of public-domain
software, systems for the private use
of a computer club or user group, or
even computerized dating! These are
major divisions, with a wide spectrum
of possibilities within each. A system
specializing in the uploading and
downloading of software may spe-
cialize yet further and concentrate on
programs written in the C language
for 8-bit computer systems.
Many magazines, including BYTE,
use bulletin boards to deliver pro-
grams detailed in articles. As long as
you possess a modem, you can avoid
the tedium of manually typing pro-
gram listings. Magazines also use
bulletin boards as a collection point
for authors' submissions, lerry
Poumelle mentions transmitting his
column to BYTE via modem. The ad-
vantage of not having to cope with
the delays of the mail more than
makes up for the cost of the tele-
phone call.
Even some radio stations have
bulletin boards where listeners can
leave song requests and other
messages.
Some public commercial bulletin
boards have appeared. Often, com-
puter stores configure an in-house
microcomputer as a bulletin board,
promoting products and services. Al-
though commercial possibilities for
bulletin boards exist, the single-user
nature of most personal computers
limits how many callers can be han-
dled, and there are restrictions as to
what the caller might do on the sys-
tem once access is granted.
An alternative to a public system is
a private system with limited access.
An example of this is an employee
who uses a terminal or computer at
home to work on a computer at the
office. Another one is the after-hours
messaging or order-entry system.
With access limited to a relatively few
suppliers and customers, communica-
tion is maintained at all times.
The SB180 TKBBS will operate in
either a private or public mode.
Legalities
Private systems are likely to become
popular due to the unfavorable legal
atmosphere regarding bulletin
boards. This has resulted from misuse
of public bulletin-board systems by
people known as "phreaks," "pirates,"
"worms," and "crackers." Phreaks
defraud the telephone company of
toll charges through a variety of
schemes. Pirates use bulletin boards
to exchange information on how to il-
legally duplicate copyrighted soft-
ware. Worms and crackers break into
other computers to access confiden-
tial files and destroy information.
These activities have spurred many
state legislatures and the U.S. Con-
gress to pass a variety of laws aimed
at restricting the activities of bulletin
boards (an extensive discussion on
this topic, complete with voluminous
source data, is available on BIX under
"BBS/other" and "tele.policy" con-
ferences).
Many of these laws make the per-
son who operates the BBS responsi-
ble for all activities that occur on the
system. One result of this has been
that not many systems are open to
first-time callers. Many operators of
bulletin boards now require that peo-
ple register for access. This usually in-
volves some sort of verification that
the person is not operating with a
phony name and that the person pro-
vides a real address and telephone
number. If a caller does perform some
illegal activity, the sysop can refer ap-
propriate law enforcement officials to
that caller. Nearly all sysops have no
intention of engaging in illegal ac-
tivities, and these measures are their
way of protecting themselves. You
should bear these legalities in mind
[continued)
Photo 1: A prototype of the COMM180 expansion board, shown here populated
with the MOSART communications chip and its supporting circuitry.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 97
CIRCUIT CELLAR
if you intend to operate a public
system.
THE TKBBS
The hardware of the TKBBS consists
of the SB180 single-board computer;
the COMM180 expansion board con-
taining the MOSART; two disk drives
capable of storing approximately
1600K bytes; and an enclosure, power
supply, and necessary cables. The
software of the TKBBS includes the Z-
System (see the October Circuit
Cellar). Also included are the two soft-
ware packages that make up the core
of the TKBBS: Term III and Z-MSG
Because the hardware components
and the Z-System were extensively
discussed in previous Circuit Cellar ar-
ticles, I will discuss them only briefly
Photo 2: With the addition of a few chips and a connector, the COMM180
from photo 1 can also support an SCSI hard-disk interface.
Photo 3: The COMM180 modem/SCSI board rides piggyback on the SB180
single-board computer, connecting via the SB180's expansion I/O connector.
here so that the BBS software can be
discussed in further detail.
The SB180
The SB 180 is a single-board computer
based on the Hitachi HD64180 micro-
processor, which is upward-com-
patible with Z80 software. The SB 180
contains 2 56K bytes of RAM (random-
access read/write memory); two serial
ports; an SMC 9266 floppy-disk-
controller chip that handles 3/2-. 5 Vt-.
and 8-inch drives (concurrently); an
8K-byte monitor in EPROM (erasable
programmable read-only memory); a
Centronics-compatible parallel printer
port; and an I/O expansion bus. This
all fits on a circuit card that measures
4 by 7/2 inches (the size of a 3 '/2-inch
disk drive). I described the SB180
hardware extensively in the Sep-
tember Circuit Cellar.
COMM180 Expansion Card
The COMM180 expansion card,
shown in figure 1, consists of the
MOSART and a few other com-
ponents. The XE1203 MOSART chip,
discussed in great detail in last
month's Circuit Cellar, is a 300/
1200-bps modem with DTMF-decod-
ing and speech-synthesis capabilities.
It is unique in that it incorporates all
these functions into one small device,
2 square inches, designed to interface
directly into the data bus of a micro-
processor (see photo 1).
The MOSART operates on + 5 and
- 5 volts. The + 12 V supplied to the
COMM180 board is reduced and con-
verted to - 5 V through a 6.8-V Zener
and an ICL7660 voltage-inverter IC (in-
tegrated circuit). The COMM180 ex-
pansion card has two audio jacks for
audio in/audio out but also contains
an LM386 amplifier chip that will
drive an external speaker for call
monitoring.
Addressing for the MOSART is pre-
decoded on the SB 180 board, and
connections are made directly to the
l/O-expansion-bus signals. Only a
single 7423 is required to combine
the various MOSART status outputs
into a suitable interrupt to the micro-
processor.
The COMM180 is built on a 4- by
98 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
CIRCUIT CELLAR
4-inch board that mounts directly over
the SB180 and plugs into the I/O ex-
pansion bus. Since the COMM180 is
so simple and I had a lot of board
space remaining. I decided to fill it up
with yet another useful but presently
undocumented expansion to the
SBI80. The COMMI80 expansion
board can optionally contain the
necessary SCSI (small computer stan-
dard interface) hardware interface to
attach a hard disk to the SB180 (see
photos 2 and 3). The hardware is
there, and the software should be
finished by the time you read this. It
will be the subject of a future Circuit
Cellar article.
Z-System
The Z-System is an advanced single-
user operating system compatible
with programs intended to run under
CP/M 2.2. It was discussed in detail in
the October Circuit Cellar. The version
supplied with the TKBBS differs slight-
ly from the standard Z-System in that
the ZCPR3 portion has been recon-
figured as a "secure" system. The
other significant difference is that an
Input/Output Package (IOP) ZCPR3
system segment done especially for
the TKBBS is included.
A secure configuration of ZCPR3
has some distinguishing character-
istics. The major one is that the
system no longer accepts what is
known as the DU: form of changing
the currently active disk drive and
user area. This means that the caller
cannot move from area to area in the
system using commands like AO: and
B3:. If a command of the DU: type
is entered, it is simply ignored. In-
stead, the Named Directory functions
of ZCPR3 are used for this purpose
for system security. DU: references, if
enabled, allow the user to enter any
area of the system.
When configured so that named
directories are the only way to change
areas, the operator of the BBS can
protect certain directories by defining
them with passwords. Callers to the
TKBBS will be able to freely enter
areas that do not have passwords
defined but will be unable to enter
areas where a password is defined
unless they know the password. In a
public bulletin-board environment,
security is mandatory. Files contain-
ing user names and passwords, for ex-
ample, cannot be accessible to every-
one.
In addition to the disabling of the
DU: form, another characteristic of a
secure ZCPR3 environment is the use
of the wheel byte, again for system
security. The wheel byte provides a
convenient way of disabling danger-
ous commands that callers to the sys-
tem should not be allowed to use. Ex-
amples of dangerous commands are
erase a file (ERA), rename a file
(REN), copy a file (CP), memory peek
and poke (P and POKE), and SAVE.
The convenient aspect of the wheel
byte is that these commands can be
activated if the wheel byte is set (non-
zero). So, the sysop can make use of
these commands by setting the wheel
byte, yet when a caller is accessing the
system, the TKBBS software will reset
the wheel byte so that they cannot be
used.
The special IOP system segment
performs many important system
functions in the TKBBS, like sensing
if a caller disconnects and placing the
local console in parallel with the
modem so that the actions of the
caller can be observed locally. An-
other important function of the
TKBBS IOP is measuring the amount
of time the current caller has been
logged in. A caller exceeding the limit
is disconnected.
Term III
Term III is similar in philosophy and
structure to the ZCPR3 portion of the
Z-System. This is not surprising
because both Term III and ZCPR3
were written by Richard Conn. Term
111 is a collection of 23 programs that
perform various communication func-
tions, like file transfer or answering an
incoming call. Term III uses many of
the features of ZCPR3 in its opera-
tions and will run only with ZCPR3.
Like ZCPR3. Term III (T3 for short)
works on a tools concept. The various
programs and files are intended to be
used together to create new programs
and applications. The 23 programs
Like ZCPR3,
Term III works on
a tools concept.
are listed with a short description of
each in the "Term III Programs" text
box on page 100. It is important to
note that T3 is a complete computer
communications system intended to
replace the functions of all the public-
domain software mentioned previous-
ly. For this reason, the TKBBS soft-
ware uses only certain programs from
the 23 available. The ones not used
by TKBBS are used in other applica-
tions, like on a caller's computer when
calling a TKBBS. (However, there is no
requirement that callers to a TKBBS
use T3.)
In operation, T3 relies heavily on
the message buffers and two ZCPR3
programs. Alias and Menu. Alias is a
ZCPR3 utility program that creates
COM files (executable programs) that
contain operating-system-level com-
mands. Using Alias, we can create an
invokable program that carries out a
sequence of commands in a fashion
similar to the CP/M Submit and MS-
DOS Batch functions. The user gives
a name to the program created by
Alias, and these programs are also
known as aliases. The advantage of
aliases over the CP/M or MS-DOS
equivalents is that once the alias is in-
voked, it passes its embedded com-
mand string directly into the ZCPR3
multiple command line buffer, where
it remains resident in RAM until the
entire sequence of commands is ex-
ecuted. The CP/M and MS-DOS equiv-
alents take their command strings,
one command at a time, from a file.
This difference means that an alias ex-
ecutes much faster than Submit or
Batch since it does not access the disk
drives to find the next command.
The Menu program is a ZCPR3 utili-
ty that processes menus. The Menu
program reads a file, presents a
screen to the user as defined in that
file, and uses the remainder of the in-
[conlinued)
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 99
CIRCUIT CELLAR
Term III Programs
Following is a list of the programs provided with the Term III communications
system. Programs marked with an asterisk are used as part of the TKBBS
software. The other programs are not required for TKBBS operation.
Communication
T3FILER: File transfer using XMODEM.
MODEM7 Batch. Kermit. XON/XOFF,
CIS (CompuServe), and Term protocols.
T3 FLUSH: Used to gobble up un-
needed characters from the modem.
T3SEND: Sends ASCII text via the
modem port.
T3TERM: Emulates a terminal inter-
faced to the modem port, with exten-
sive data-capture and -transmission
options.
T3TERMB: Like T3TERM. but with
some of the options stripped to allow
for larger data buffers.
T3TEST: A simple test program to
check communications with the
modem.
Telephone Control
T3ANSWER: Monitors the modem and
answers the telephone when a call
comes in.
T3DIAL: Uses the dialing functions of
the modem to initiate a call.
T3HANGUP": Commands the modem
to hang up the phone (go on hook).
T31NIT*: Initializes the modem to the
desired speed and default conditions.
Access Control
T3LOGIN*: Establishes the system en-
vironment when the current caller logs
on.
T3LOGCK*: Checks the LOGIN.TXT file
used by T3LOGIN for proper syntax
and reports statistics.
Command-File Processing
T3DO: A command-file processor that
allows unattended operation of the
Term III system.
T3VIEW: Records the user's interac-
tions with a remote system. It is used
in conjunction with T3MONRPT
(described below) to create T3DO
command files.
T3MONRPT: Analyzes the records
made with T3VIEW to assist the user
in creating T3DO command files.
Communications Server
T3 SERVER*: Allows a second com-
puter system to be controlled by a
computer running T3MASTER. All
resources of the second computer
(disk files, peripherals, etc.) are made
available.
T3MASTER: Used as the controller
of another computer executing
T3SERVER. Can be suspended to run
another program and then resumed
with no effect on the corresponding
T3SERVER.
Editors
EDCST: Communications set editor.
EDTMC: Keyboard macro editor.
EDTXD: Telephone directory editor.
EDXLT: Translation table (for trans-
mitted and received data) editor.
Miscellaneous
T3NOTE*: Logs system activity in the
ACTIVITYTXT file. It is used to track the
caller's activities and comments.
T3INS: Similar to the ZCPR3 installa-
tion utility Z3INS. It is used to install
the Term III programs if any major
changes are made to the system.
formation in that file to process input
by the user.
The ZCPR3 message buffers are a
way for programs to exchange infor-
mation. Physically, the message buf-
fer is an 80-byte reserved area of
RAM that contains various ZCPR3 en-
tities known as registers, the ZCPR3
IF command status, and the ZCPR3
error flag. T3 uses the error flag and
registers extensively. Listing 1 is an ex-
ample showing the use of an alias and
the error flag with the T3 software.
Note the use of the ZCPR3 IF com-
mand, which determines if the
T3ANSWER program terminated
because a caller is present or because
the sysop typed a Control-C locally.
The T3ANSWER Program
T3ANSWER has the function in the
TKBBS software of waiting until a
caller is present. The COMM180's
MOSART is repeatedly sampled by
T3ANSWER until the MOSART in-
dicates that it is receiving a ring signal
from the telephone line. At this point,
T3ANSWER sends a command to the
MOSART to answer the call (go off
hook) and emit what is known as
answertone to the telephone line.
Answertone is a high-pitched tone in-
tended to indicate to the calling party
that they have reached a modem.
T3ANSWER then continues sampling
the status of the MOSART until the
MOSART indicates it is receiving a
carrier tone from a calling modem. If
no carrier tone is detected after 20
seconds, T3ANSWER commands the
MOSART to hang up (go on hook) and
returns to checking for the ring signal.
If a carrier tone is received within the
20 seconds, T3ANSWER terminates
and sets the ZCPR3 error flag to the
false (zero) state.
A special enhancement to the
TKBBS T3ANSWER makes use of the
DTMF-decoding functions of the
MOSART. During the 20-second time
period that the MOSART is emitting
answertone, if the DTMF digit "#" is
received, T3ANSWER acts as though
a carrier was received from a remote
modem and terminates.
In addition to resetting the ZCPR3
error flag, T3ANSWER places the
100 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
CIRCUIT CELLAR
value 01 into ZCPR3's register 4.
Therefore, if you want to use the
DTMF/voice response features of the
MOSART. you can still use
T3ANSWER and the TKBBS software
for callers who have modems yet
allow someone who does not have a
modem to interact with the system.
An example might be the sysop call-
ing in from a pay telephone. Assum-
ing he has written a program that lets
him check the status of the TKBBS
that takes its input as L7TMF digits and
outputs audio using the voice-
synthesis capability of the MOSART.
he can call, enter the "#" digit during
the answertone period, and invoke
the program. His program can then in-
form him of recent callers, read
messages to him, or whatever else he
may have programmed. A program to
do something like this is not supplied
with the TKBBS software, but this
"escape code" or "hook" built into
T3ANSWER allows a TKBBS to be
much more than a bulletin board. (If
anybody writes this program before
1 do. I'd like to see it.)
Z-MSG
Z-MSG is a message-handling system
(see photo 4). As such, it is the elec-
tronic mail portion of the TKBBS.
Z-MSG uses advanced programming
techniques like program overlays and
totals about 78K bytes of files, in-
dependent of the message storage
and other accessories. The author of
Z-MSG, Tim Gary, has optimized it for
use with ZCPR3 and T3. transforming
the TKBBS into a cohesive unit.
Originally written in C source code.
Z-MSG is supplied as executable pro-
grams and overlay files. To allow the
user a wide range of configuration
flexibility, a program called ZMCON-
FIG is supplied. ZMCONFIG lets the
user select whether the BBS is to be
public or private, set the special sysop
name and password, specify file-
names and locations of files used by
Z-MSG. set the maximum number of
messages allowed and their length,
edit the eight user types regarding
their privileges, and much more.
Z-MSG features include large mes-
sages (up to 100 lines or more), the
ability to change the options of the
system without requiring recompila-
tion, multiple categories of users
(callers), extensive editing functions
for messages being entered, and
selective searching of available
messages for those of interest. One
nice feature of Z-MSG is that help for
the user is available throughout the
system just by entering a question
mark.
Figure 2 illustrates a sample session
with Z-MSG. It shows a caller logging
onto Z-MSG. When somebody logs
on, the message files are searched for
any mail addressed to that caller. If a
message is found, as shown, the caller
is given the message number and the
sender's name. Once the message is
retrieved, Z-MSG asks the caller if a
reply is to be made.
A powerful function of Z-MSG is its
use of the ZCPR3 environment to
allow execution of other programs
(.COM files) from within the message
system. This function's implementa-
tion lets the sysop add commands to
{continued]
Listing 1 : An alias called TKBBS.COM is used to put the turnkey bulletin-
board system on line.
Alias Contents
Comments (not part of the file)
1: T3INIT2;
Initialize the modem
2: REG 4 0;
Flag T3ANSWER to not allow the DTMF "#" to be
specially treated
3: T3ANSWER;
Execute T3ANSWER
4: IF ERROR;
If T3ANSWER did set the error flag. . .
5: ECHO LOCAL ABORT
The sysop aborted T3ANSWER locally
6: ELSE;
If T3ANSWER did not set the error flag. . .
7: DEV C CRTMODEM;
We have a caller, put console and modem in
parallel
(handled in the IOP), and. . .
8: Z-MSG X;
Execute Z-MSG
9; Fl
Clean up IF status - .
Co.trol-I to ikart, Coatral-S to passe.
+++ Z-Ha§ Cm
HI - Let-off. Ho r 1 optio..
C - Call Z uitk riMiit opt in
CM - CM with Sysop (if availakle)
C - C00I1YI uitk Cant eft in
J - Jaaa to Z. as nwrt optioi.
1 *I- akarVrstars to ■— Use
U -Mr Prattle Cktaes
I - btor ar Create sou ■
I I LI- kelete/Irise specif ic
A 0- Skip to Hart
< - tick Scii - aessife Talcs eely
1 - laal hj aaator (tlaa + - eptiss)
K1 - laal ar Saw* (vitk lelp tafe)
ID - lap I) to specific asssajs asaaar
- leii ill W (sisec list lapse)
I - lain of MUCUS far viwias B;?- Baal eevane ar Sauck (*/fclp)
I - UispU* WLLRII file B - laal Seeeeetiil Mar
N - lain of Swtoa MTB far vieaies B;?- laal Saaaaatisl ar Saarck
- liipliy atkar loci I BS Swton S - Saaaara list af Taste, late, rtc
1 - NBCnn af las istoral Users V.I - Saaaara ar Saarck toitk Help)
(rrass UTUa. ts caatiaaaa]
Photo 4: A sample screen from the Circuit Cellar's TKBBS. showing a
command summary of the Z-MSG message-handling program.
DECEMBER 1985
10
CIRCUIT CELLAR
What's your name (or SYSTEM ID)? steve ciarcia
[Checking for previous logon]
Enter password? 1234
[Updating logs]
Z-MSG Message-Handling System.
Version 1.30xx
You are caller 7996 (User #378).
You've called 2 time(s), last one being on 07/10/85.
There are 130 active messages. (26 are private)
Your last read message was 2540.
The current high message Is 2541.
[Checking for your Mail]
[You have Mail!]
Number: From:
2541 David McCord [new] [private]
(Enter '?' for help) Command: r
Read message #(first= 1, Last = 2541)? 2541
Msg #2541 posted 07/10/85 by David McCord
To: Steve Ciarcia <Priv> About: SB180 (4 lines)
Steve, I really like the SB180 I have. I especially like the built-in RAM disk.
A very nice design! By the way, what's the power consumption at 5 volts?
Dave
[Reply to this msg (y/n)? ] [yes]
To: David McCord
Subject: SB180
[Is the subject ok (y/n)? ] [yes]
(Private/Normal)? p
Enter message text following each line number
To edit or end, hit RETURN alone on a line.
Up to 77 characters (letters/numbers) on a line
and 100 lines maximum.
1: Dave, the power consumption of the SB180 is 500 mA at 5 volts and
2: 40 mA at 12 volts. Thanks for the compliments.
3: Sfeve Ciarcia
4:
(A)bort, (C)ontinue, (D)elete, (E)dit,
(l)nsert, (L)ist, (R)eplace, (S)ave,
(U)pload .: Select ? s
[Saving message #2542]
[Kill Message you've just replied to (y/n)?] [yes]
Msg #2541 posted 07/10/85 by David McCord
To: Steve Ciarcia <Priv> About: SB180 (4 lines)
Confirm (y/n)? [yes]
[Delete message #2541]
: igure 2: A sample session with the electronic mail system Z-MSG.
Z-MSG by editing a simple text file. No
recompilation or reassembly is re-
quired, a unique feature for any pro-
gram, be it message system or what-
ever.
TKBBS Security
As discussed previously, several files
must be kept confidential in order to
prevent compromising system securi-
ty. The best way to keep them con-
fidential is to store them in a disk
drive/user area that has no directory
name associated with it. Remember,
the secure implementation of ZCPR3
accepts only directory names to
change the active drive and user area.
Therefore, if no name is defined for
an area, it is impossible to enter that
area. However, you may be asking
yourself how the sysop can place files
in these areas if they are impossible
to enter. The answer is that the cur-
rent set of directory names are
changed easily by loading a different
ZCPR3 Named Directory system seg-
ment into RAM. Thus, the sysop,
when using the system locally, can
operate with a set of directory names
that includes names for the secure
areas. When the system is being used
by a caller, a different set of directory
names is in effect, which does not in-
clude names for those areas. And the
caller has no way of changing the ac-
tive set of directory names.
The PATH function of ZCPR3 is also
different depending on who is using
the system. Typically, executable pro-
grams (.COM files) that callers can ex-
ecute are stored on drive A, user area
(A0:). Examples of this kind of pro-
gram are Z-MSG and T3 HANGUP. So,
the PATH for a caller is simply AO:,
which means that the programs in A0:
can be invoked from any other area
of the system. However, sysops may
have useful programs on the system
that they do not want callers to be
able to use. Examples of this kind of
program are DU3 (disk utility) and the
TKBBS.COM Alias discussed previous-
ly. For the sysops convenience, the
PATH can be set to A0:- >Al 5: when
using the system locally. The PATH
setting is independent of the named
directories and can invoke programs
BYTE • DECEMBER I985
CIRCUIT CELLAR
in unnamed drive/user areas, if nec-
essary.
As another protection against com-
promise of system security, files
received by the TKBBS in an upload-
ing function are subject to being
renamed because some caller may at-
tempt to upload a .COM file in order
to compromise system security. If this
is attempted, the TKBBS software
automatically renames it an .OB) file
to prevent it from executing. This pro-
tection can be overridden if the wheel
byte is set.
Circuit Cellar BBS
As mentioned earlier. I have set up a
Circuit Cellar private-access BBS that
uses the configuration outlined in this
article. It can be reached 24 hours a
day at (203) 871-1988. 1 intend to use
it to supplement projects by providing
part lists, program listings, project up-
dates, and other useful information.
I invite you to join.
For the month of December, you
can call and see a demonstration of
the TKBBS and register for continued
access. On lanuary 15, 1986. subse-
quent access will be limited to those
who have registered and received an
ID by mail. To become a member after
that date, send me a postcard or let-
ter with your return address, and I will
send you an ID and password for the
system. You will retain access as long
as the following code of ethics is
maintained:
1. No distribution of copyrighted soft-
ware or encouragement thereof.
2. No distribution of private access
codes, credit card codes, or engaging
in any other unlawful activities.
3. No obscene or offensive language
permitted in open areas.
4. No X-rated activities or messages
permitted in open areas.
5. Any user guilty of violating any of
the published rules will be denied
access.
6. Any attempt to tamper with the
board, alter the system, or gain sysop
access will result in deletion.
7. No use of abusive language or con-
duct toward any other user in open
areas.
8. Users will follow all posted system
regulations. A warning note will be
given to a user if they have done
something that is not publicly posted
but is against the wishes of the sysop.
9. This board is not funded by BYTE
and is my private property. I have the
right to deny the use of this system
to anyone for any reason 1 deem fit.
These rules are not intended to be
restrictive. They are intended to make
this system a pleasure to use by all
responsible parties and prevent the
abuses that have brought legal action
against BBS sysops and users alike.
Circuit Cellar readers are of all ages
and both sexes, and I am concerned
for their welfare. If we cannot control
the activities of our own boards,
numerous federal and state agencies
will happily do it for us, and the last
thing we need is government controls.
Conclusion
The SB 180 TKBBS hardware and soft-
ware is an extremely powerful pack-
age that makes the most of the capa-
bilities of the Xecom 1203 MOSART
and the Z-System operating system of
the SB180.
Perhaps the only significant limita-
tion of the TKBBS lies in the amount
of storage available as dictated by the
current BIOS (basic input/output sys-
tem). Although the system could be
expanded to about 3.1 megabytes of
storage by using four 96-tpi (tracks per
inch) floppy-disk drives, it is not
unusual for a public bulletin board to
make use of hard disks in the 5- to
40-megabyte range. A tremendous
amount of public-domain and free-
ware-type software is available, which
necessitates a large amount of stor-
age capacity if your bulletin board is
to carry a wide selection. Of course,
this limitation will disappear when the
hard-disk interface on the COMM180
board is operational.
Circuit Cellar Feedback
This month's feedback is on page 420.
Next Month
A multichannel 12-bit A/D converter
for the BCC52. ■
Special thanks to Dave McCord. Rick Conn.
and Tim Gary for their contributions to the
TKBBS.
The following items are available from
The Micromint Inc.
2 5 Terrace Dr.
Vernon, CT 06066
(800) 635-3355 for orders
(203) 871-6170 for information
The COMM180 expansion interface is a com-
bination MOSART-based modem and SCSI
hard-disk interface expansion board for the
SB 180 computer. The modem section, which
includes a DTMF encoder/decoder and LPC
speech synthesizer, is designated as the
COMM180-M. It comes with Term ill com-
munication software and manual. The TKBBS
consists of a COMM180-M and Z-MSG in-
stalled on an SB180.
The SCSI hard-disk-interface section is
designated as the COMM180-S. It has a
50-pin SCSI bus header and is Zebec
1410/Adaptec ACB4000 controller-
compatible. It comes with a BIOS upgrade
on disk.
The printed-circuit board for either version
is completely socketed and can be upgraded
to include both functions at any time. The
combination modem/SCSI interface board is
designated as the COMM180-M-S. Software
is supplied on 5 !4-inch double-sided double-
density SB180 format disks with manuals.
Boards are available assembled and tested
only.
COMM180 MOSART modem with Term III
COMM180-M. $350
COMMI80 SCSI interface with BIOS
upgrade COMM180-S, $150
COMM180 MOSART modem and SCSI
COMM180-M-S, $500
Z-MSG BBS software $100
Please include $5 for shipping and handling
in the continental United States. $10
elsewhere. Connecticut residents please in-
clude 7.5 percent sales tax.
Editor's Note: Steve often refers to previous
Circuit Cellar articles. Most of these past ar-
ticles are available in book form from BYTE
Books, McGraw-Hill Book Company. POB
400. Hightstown. N| 082 50.
Ciarcids Circuit Cellar. Volume 1 covers articles
in BYTE from September 1977 through
November 1978. Volume II covers December
1978 through lune 1980. Volume III covers luly
1980 through December 1981. Volume IV
covers lanuary 1982 through lune 1983.
To receive a complete list of Ciarcia's Cir-
cuit Cellar project kits, circle 100 on the
reader-service inquiry card at the back of
the magazine.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
103
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 105
106 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
ILLUSTRATED BY ROB COLVIN
PROGRAMMING PROJECT
A SIMPL COMPILER
PART 1 : THE BASICS
by Jonathan Amsterdam
Aw implementation of a compiler
for a simple structured language
In this article— the first of
a three-part series on
the construction of a
compiler for a high-level
language— 1 will discuss
the basics of the com-
piler. Next month 1 will
talk about procedures and functions, and
in the third part of the series 1 will describe
some of the compiler's extensions.
Three of my earlier Programming Projects
are prerequisites for this one. "Context-Free
Parsing of Arithmetic Expressions" (August,
page 138) explains the parsing technique
I will be using. "Building a Computer in Soft-
ware" (October, page 112) describes VM2.
the virtual machine for which my compiler
is targeted. And "A VM2 Assembler" (Nov-
ember, page 112) details the assembly-lan-
guage code that the compiler will generate.
The SIMPL Programming
Language
I will be describing a compiler for a lan-
guage of my own design, called SIMPL.
SIMPL, which stands for "SIMPL Isn't Much
of a Programming Language," isn't much of
a programming language. SIMPLs grammar
is given in figure 1. There are a few points
that are not described by the grammar. An
identifier is any string of letters and
numbers beginning with a letter. Unlike
most implementations of Pascal, SIMPL is
case-sensitive, so the identifiers READ and
Read mean different things. SIMPL key-
words, like PROGRAM and BEGIN, are
capitalized. Comments in SIMPL are
delimited by braces ({ }). As in Pascal,
character constants are delimited by single
quotes, but SIMPL also allows the backslash
character ( \ ) to act as an escape. When
followed by an n or a t, the backslash
denotes a new line (carriage return) or tab;
when followed by any other character, it
denotes that character. For example, the
character constant for the single quote
looks like ' \ '.
SIMPLs WHILE and IF statements, like
those of Modula-2, are explicitly terminated
by an END. The AND operator has the
same precedence as OR, and both have
weaker precedences than those of all other
operators, so it is unnecessary to put paren-
theses around expressions connected by
AND and OR. Furthermore, expressions
surrounding an AND or OR will be
evaluated from left to right, and no more
than necessary will be evaluated. For exam-
ple, in the expression TRUE AND FALSE
AND TRUE, the first TRUE will be
evaluated and then the FALSE will be
(continued)
Jonathan Amsterdam is a graduate student at the
Massachusetts \nstitute of Technology Artificial \n-
telligence laboratory. He can be reached at 1643
Cambridge St. #34, Cambridge. MA 02138.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE
107
PROGRAMMING PROJECT
evaluated; at that point, evaluation of
the second TRUE will be skipped
because the value of the whole ex-
pression must be FALSE.
SIMPL has procedures and func-
tions much like those of Pascal, but
rather than assigning a value to the
name of the function, a value is
returned from a SIMPL function using
the RETURN statement. A RETURN
without an expression can be used to
exit from a procedure. It cannot be
used in the main program.
SIMPL has two built-in procedures.
READ and WRITE. These procedures
can only read or write integers or
characters and only from the key-
board or screen. Both take any
number of arguments. The arguments
to READ must be variables; those to
WRITE can be any expression.
SIMPL supports variables of types
INTEGER, BOOLEAN, and CHAR. It
has five kinds of statements: WHILE.
IF, RETURN, assignment, and pro-
cedure call. SIMPL has no FOR loops,
strings, case statements, arrays, con-
stants, reals, type declarations, records,
sets, repeat loops, GOTOs, labels, files,
scalar types. VAR parameters, pointers,
or math functions. Indeed. SIMPL lives
up to its name.
Still, even for this language, writing
a compiler is not easy. The compiler
consists of 12 modules and is over
3000 lines long. The source code,
written in Modula-2, is available on
BYTEnet Listings at (617) 861-9764.
What Is a Compiler?
A compiler is a program that trans-
lates other programs from one form
to another. The compiler's input is a
source file, which is a sequence of
characters that constitutes the
human-readable text of the program.
Some compilers translate this direct-
ly into object code, which can be
loaded and executed by the machine.
Other compilers produce as output
another text file containing an assem-
bly-language version of the program.
This text file must then be translated
into object code by an assembler.
Although going directly from source
code to object code saves a step in
the translation process, my compiler
takes the second approach for two
reasons. First, producing an assembly-
language version of the program
makes it easier to write the compiler
because I don't have to worry about
bookkeeping details (like forward ref-
erences of labels) that the assembler
program
vars :: =
varlist :: ■■
decl :: =
idlist :: =
type :: =
block :: =
stmts : : =
stmt :: =
while :: =
if ::= IF
elsif :: =
else :: =
assign ::
exprlist :
expr:: =
relexpr :
intexpr :
term :: =
factor :: i
relation :
PROGRAM id; vars routines block .
empty | VAR varlist
= decl | decl varlist
idlist : type ;
id | id , idlist
INTEGER | BOOLEAN I CHAR
= BEGIN stmts END
= empty | stmt ; stmts
while ! if I return | assign | call
. WHILE expr DO stmts END
elsif END
expr THEN stmts else
empty | ELSIF elsif | ELSE stmts
= id := expr
: = expr | expr , exprlist
expr | relexpr | relexpr OR expr | relexpr AND expr
: = intexpr | intexpr relation intexpr
= term | term + intexpr j term— intexpr
factor | factor • term | factor / term
= id | number | funcall [ char |— factor | NOT factor | ( expr
:= > | < | = | <> | >= I < =
Figure I: The SIMPL grammar used by the parser.
can handle. Second, 1 can examine
and change the human-readable as-
sembly-language file. This can be
useful for debugging the compiler
and hand-optimizing its output.
Readers of "A VM2 Assembler" will
recall that an assembler is also a pro-
gram translator. But whereas assem-
bly is relatively easy, compilation is
considerably more difficult. There are
two reasons for this, the first of which
is fairly clear: Assembly-language pro-
grams correspond line for line with
the object code that has to be
generated, but high-level-language
programs, by definition, do not. A
standard computer instruction set
does not provide WHILE loops. IF. . .
THEN. . .ELSE statements, evalua-
tion of arithmetic expressions, etc.
Furthermore, at the machine level a
variable is simply a memory location,
but a high-level-language variable is
something else. For one thing, it has
a particular type associated with it, as
well as a scope, or range of visibility
(a topic I'll be discussing at length in
part 2 of this series). If you compare
the program in listing 1 with the one
in listing 2, you'll get a sense of how
different high-level language and as-
sembly language are from each other.
Compilation is difficult for another
reason as well: Users of high-level lan-
guages would like the object code
produced by the compiler to be just
as short and run just as fast as hand-
coded assembly-language programs.
So compiler writers strive to improve
the compiler's generated code. For
example, it is a good idea to keep fre-
quently used values in the registers of
the computer because they can be ac-
cessed faster than memory locations;
therefore, compiler writers have devel-
oped algorithms for optimizing reg-
ister usage. Also, most computers
have "special case" instructions that
can speed up certain common opera-
tions (such as incrementing a
number), and a good compiler will
use these instructions where appro-
priate.
While writing my compiler, 1 did
have to deal with translating high-level
SIMPL statements into low-level VM2
instructions, but 1 could avoid some
108 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
PROGRAMMING PROJECT
Listing 1: A program
written in SIMPL that calculates the greatest common
divisor of two integers.
using
Euclid's algorithm.
PROGRAM Euclid;
VAR m, n.temp, nINTEGER;
BEGIN
WRITE('?');
{ Prompt user for two integers }
READ(n);
WRITEC?');
READ(m);
IF n < m THEN
{ Make sure n is the larger of the two }
temp : = n;
n := m;
m : = temp;
END;
r : = n - m*(n/m)
{ r : = n MOD m }
WHILE r > DO
n : = m;
m : = r;
r := n - m*(n/m);
{ r : = n MOD m }
END;
WRITE(m);
{ m is the GCD— output it }
END
of the complexities of generating
good code because I was compiling
for VM2. a machine I designed to
make it easy to compile high-level lan-
guages. For example. 1 didn't have to
worry about register allocation
because VM2 doesn't have any reg-
isters (except for some special-
purpose ones with which the com-
piler needn't be concerned). This
simplification was behind my decision
to make VM2 a stack machine. Also.
VM2's instruction set is simple and
provides no special-case instructions,
so I don't have to worry about using
them.
A compiler's job can be divided into
at least four phases: lexical analysis,
parsing, type checking, and code gen-
eration.
Lexical Analysis
The compiler's first task is to translate
the stream of characters that con-
stitute the input into a more agreeable
form. The lexical analyzer transforms
the character stream into a stream of
tokens, or lexical items that are mean-
ingful to the compiler.
What counts as meaningful
depends on the program, of course.
My lexical analyzer for SIMPL has
many different types (or classes) of
tokens, including IDENTIFIER for vari-
ables, INT for integers, and a different
class for each keyword. For example,
the lexical analyzer will consume from
the input the five characters W, H, I,
L, and E, when they occur con-
secutively and are delimited on both
sides by white space (spaces, tabs, or
carriage returns), and will then return
a token of class WHILE. If the lexical
analyzer sees the characters 3, 4, and
5 occurring consecutively, it will con-
vert them into an integer. 345, and
return a token of class INT, which also
contains the number 345.
The lexical analyzer's design is
similar to that of the VM2 assembler's
lexical analyzer. Where the lexical
analyzer of the assembler allowed
you to "unget" the last character that
was taken from the input, the SIMPL
lexical analyzer allows you to unget a
token— that is. to arrange matters so
that the next call to the lexical
analyzer will return the same token.
Parsing
SIMPL programs are more than just
lists of tokens. They have a complex
structure, as reflected by the grammar
shown in figure 1. A WHILE loop, for
example, consists of a Boolean test
and a group of statements; an assign-
ment statement has a variable on the
[continued]
Listing 2: VM2 assembly-
language code produced by the
SIMPL compil
er upon compilation
of the program
in listing 1.
BRANCH Euclid
m:
n:
temp:
r:
Euclid:
PUSHC
'?
WRCHAR
RDINT
POPC
n
PUSHC
'?
WRCHAR
RDINT
POPC
m
PUSH
n
PUSH
m
LESS
BREQL
L1
PUSH
n
POPC
temp
PUSH
m
POPC
n
PUSH
temp
POPC
m
L1:
PUSH
n
PUSH
m
PUSH
n
PUSH
m
DIV
MUL
SUB
POPC
r
L2:
PUSH
r
PUSHC
GREATER
BREQL
L3
PUSH
m
POPC
n
PUSH
r
POPC
m
PUSH
n
PUSH
m
PUSH
n
PUSH
m
DIV
MUL
SUB
POPC
r
BRANCH
L2
L3:
PUSH
m
WRINT
HALT
DECEMBER I985 -BYTE 109
PROGRAMMING PROJECT
left side and an expression on the
right; and so on. It is the parser's job
to impose structure on the token
stream. In my compiler, the parser will
actually construct a parse tree— a data
structure that reflects the structure of
the program. A typical parse tree is
shown in figure 2.
Readers of "Context-Free Parsing of
Arithmetic Expressions" will recall
that 1 built a parse tree from an ex-
pression by writing a procedure for
each rule of the grammar and by hav-
ing the procedure consume just as
much of the input as was necessary
to parse its particular rule. I'll use the
same technique, called top-down or
recursive-descent parsing, for my
compiler.
Type Checking
Every variable and function in SIMPL
has a particular type— integer, charac-
ter, or Boolean— and the use of these
types is governed by several rules. For
example, you can only add integers,
you can only compare two expres-
sions of the same type for equality
and the types of the arguments to a
procedure and the procedure's formal
parameters must be identical. Pascal
programmers should be familiar with
these rules. The compiler enforces
them by checking each expression as
it is parsed to make sure it conforms.
Since variables, procedures, and func-
tions must be declared before they
are used, the compiler always knows
the types of the variables involved in
the expressions.
Code Generation
In the fourth phase of compilation,
the compiler translates the parse tree
into the actual assembly-language
code. As 1 mentioned, this process
can be very involved, but for my com-
piler it is fairly straightforward.
Some compilers have additional
phases. Often, an optimization phase
occurs either just before or just after
code generation. In this phase, trans-
formations are made to either the
parse tree or the assembly-language
code to make the generated code
more efficient.
Intermediate Representation
As I've described it, the SIMPL com-
piler constructs a parse tree from the
input and then generates code from
the tree. Why not skip the parse tree
altogether and have the parser call
the code generator directly? This is
certainly possible and has the advan-
tage of speed— constructing the parse
tree takes some time. But 1 think it's
a good idea to have some sort of in-
termediate representation (1R) like a
parse tree for a couple of reasons.
First, it allows you to separate the
"front end" of the compiler— the lex-
Figure 2: Parse tree for the SIMPL statement IF a < b THEN b := b -
1; ELSIF a > b THEN b: = b + 1; ELSE b := a.
ical analyzer, parser, and type
checker— from the "back end— the
code generator. The IR serves as a
common language that lets the two
ends communicate. For instance, if
your compiler is too big to fit into
memory all at once, you can first
generate the IR, then swap in the back
end to generate the code. Such multi-
pass compilers are common, but
mine will only make a single pass over
the input.
An IR also makes it easy to mix and
match compiler parts, which means
you can use the same code generator
for Pascal and C or the same front end
for a compiler that generates VM2
code and for one that produces
Motorola 68000 code. Or, instead of
generating code from the IR, you can
write an interpreter for it. In short, an
IR helps make your compiler more
modular, and modularity is the
essence of good software engineer-
ing.
There's another important reason
for using an IR: It provides a more
abstract view of the program being
compiled. The source code and ob-
ject code are just lists of characters or
numbers, but the IR can represent the
program in a way that more clearly
reveals its structure to the compiler.
For instance, if the compiler wants to
know what statements are part of the
WHILE loop in listing l, it can much
more easily determine that informa-
tion from the parse tree in figure 2
than from the source code in listing
l . A compiler may want to use this in-
formation for optimizing the code.
The IR can aid code generation by
making certain aspects of the code
explicit. For a stack machine like VM2,
the parse tree is a natural choice.
The Compiler in Detail
I described the various phases of
compilation as if they occurred one
after the other in a simple procession.
In fact, they overlap in a complex
dance choreographed by the parser.
In the text that follows I'll explore the
compiler in greater detail, using the
grammar of SIMPL as my guide. I will
be referring to specific VM2 instruc-
[amtinued)
110 BYTE ■ DECEMBER 1985
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PROGRAMMING PROJECT
tions (the instruction set can be found
in my October Programming Project
"Building a Computer in Software").
[Editor's note: lowercase routine names refer
to routines written in Modula-2, which im-
plement the compiler; uppercase names are
either SIMPL keywords or VM2 instruc-
tions^
Compilation begins with the first
line of the grammar. This line corre-
sponds to a procedure in the parser
named, not surprisingly, program.
The program procedure first calls the
lexical analyzer to make sure the first
token is the keyword PROGRAM
Then it gets another token, which
should be an identifier. This token is
the name of the program. The parser
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now calls the code generator to out-
put a BRANCH instruction using the
program name as a label. This must
be done because the main program
code is not compiled until after the
routines and global variables are com-
piled; you have to jump over the
routine and variable code to get to
the main program. The main program
occurs at the end of the file because
the SIMPL compiler is a one-pass
compiler— everything has to be de-
fined before it's used, including the
main program's procedures, functions,
and variables.
The program procedure then calls
two other parser procedures, vars and
routines. Then it outputs the program
name as a label, calls the block pro-
cedure to compile the text of the pro-
gram, and finally, when it sees the dot
token, outputs a HALT instruction. A
degenerate SIMPL program— one
with no variables, routines, or main
program body— such as PROGRAM
foo; BEGIN END. compiles into the
following two-line program:
foo:
BRANCH foo
HALT
Variable Declarations
The next five rules— those for vars,
varlist, decl, idlist, and type— handle
variable declarations. You'll note that
the vars rule can be empty; that is, the
program might not have any variable
declarations. The parser can easily
recognize this simply by checking
whether the next token is VAR:. If so.
the varlist procedure is called; if not.
the parser calls the lexical analyzer's
ungetToken routine to return the
token to the input for future consump-
tion.
The varlist procedure calls the decl
procedure, then examines the next
token to see if it is a BEGIN. PRO-
CEDURE, or FUNCTION. If it's any
of these three, then there are no more
variable declarations; if it isn't, then
there are more declarations, and var-
list calls decl again. In either case, the
token is ungotten.
A declaration consists of a list of
identifiers— the variable names-
followed by a colon and then by a
112 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 3 30
PROGRAMMING PROJECT
type name. The decl procedure
begins by calling idlist, which returns
the identifiers in a linked list. Then
decl reads the type name and calls
the code generator to generate code
for the variables. Then, a label— the
variable's name— has to be generated,
followed by some initial value for the
variable. I use as an initial value,
which is interpreted as FALSE for
Boolean variables and as the ASCII
NUL character for character variables.
However, the compiler must do
more than merely generate code. It
also has to store information about
these variables for use later in the
compilation. The type of a variable is
needed for type checking, and the
fact that a variable is global will affect
how the code generator produces ref-
erences to it. My compiler puts all this
information into a record called a
symbol and inserts it into its symbol
table. The symbol table is a close
relative of the label table used in the
VM2 assembler— it has a similar pur-
pose and is also best implemented as
a hash table. The compiler's symbol
table is rather more complex, though,
because it also has to handle local
variables. I'll defer discussion of its
complexities to the second part of
this series.
Statements
The bulk of the compiler is involved
in translating SIMPL statements. State-
ments occur in lists, as the stmts line
in figure 1 indicates. A list of state-
ments can be empty. How does the
stmts procedure recognize this? If you
examine the grammar closely, you'll
notice that any statement list is ended
by one of the three keywords ELSE,
ELSIF, or END, so these can be used
to tell when a statement list is empty.
Let's examine each of the SIMPL
statements in turn. I will defer treat-
ment of the procedure call and
RETURN statements to part 2 of this
series. Figure 3 illustrates the code
generated for each type of statement.
ASSIGNMENT STATEMENTS
To parse an assignment statement, the
parser first calls the lexical analyzer
to get the identifier on the left side
of the statement. The parser can't dis-
tinguish an assignment statement
from a procedure call until it calls the
lexical analyzer to read the next
token. If the next token is a : = . the
parser knows this is an assignment
statement. Then the parser checks to
see if the identifier has been defined
by looking it up in the symbol table.
It also checks to make sure the iden-
tifier is the name of a variable, not a
procedure or function. The parser
then calls the expr routine to parse
the expression and subsequently calls
a special tree-building procedure to
construct the parse tree from the vari-
able and the expression. Parse trees
consist of several different types of
nodes. The tree-building procedure
for the assignment statement creates
a symbol node for the variable, an ex-
pression node for the expression, and
makes both these nodes the children
of an assignment node It also checks
the types of the variable and the ex-
pression to make sure they match.
To generate the code for an assign-
ment statement, the code generator
first generates code for the expres-
sion. At run time, after this code is ex-
ecuted, the result of the expression
will be on the top of the stack. To
store it in the variable, the compiler
needs only to generate a POPC in-
struction with the variable's name as
an argument (see figure 3a).
The WHILE Statement
The parser's while procedure reads
the expression following the WHILE
token and checks to make sure its
type is BOOLEAN. It then reads the
DO followed by a list of statements.
A tree-building procedure creates a
WHILE node and makes the Boolean
expression and the statement list its
children.
To generate code for a WHILE state-
ment, the compiler first creates two
new labels; let's call them START and
END for now, although in the actual
code generator there is a special func-
tion that generates a unique label
[continued)
(a) var : = expr (code for expr)
| POPC var
(b) WHILE expr DO | START: (code for expr)
stmts; BREQL END
END; (code for stmts)
BRANCH START
| END:
(c) IF expr THEN (code for expr)
stmts BREQL END
END; (code for stmts)
END:
(d) IF expr THEN (code for expr)
stmtsi BREQL ELSE
ELSE (code for stmtsi)
stmts2 BRANCH END
END; ELSE: (code for stmts2)
| END:
(e) WRITE(intexpr,charexpr); (code for Intexpr)
WRINT
(code for charexpr)
| WRCHAR
(f) READ(intvar, charvar); | RDINT
POPC intvar
| RDCHAR
j POPC charvar
Figure 3: VM2 code generated for SIMPL statements.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
113
\
PROGRAMMING PROJECT
name each time it is called in order
to avoid name conflicts. The code
generator begins by outputting the
START label and then generates code
for the Boolean expression. If this ex-
pression evaluates to FALSE, the loop
shouldn't be executed, so the instruc-
tion BREQL END is output; this will
have the effect of branching to the
END label if the expression evaluates
to FALSE. Now the body of the loop
is generated, followed by a BRANCH
START instruction to repeat the loop.
Finally, the code generator outputs
the END label (see figure 3b).
The IF Statement
The IF statement is a bit tricky to
parse because it may contain ELSIFs
and an ELSE. 1 have divided the work
among three procedures, if, elsif, and
else. You can tell when an ELSE is
empty by seeing if the next token is
END.
As with the WHILE statement, I
check to make sure that I have parsed
a Boolean expression. When 1 am
done parsing, I build a tree whose
root is an IF node and whose three
children are the Boolean test, the
THEN part, and the ELSE part. Note
that the ELSE part may itself be
another IF statement: this is what hap-
pens when ELSIF is used (see figure
1). If there is no ELSE part, I fill the
ELSE slot of the IF node with the
value NIL.
To generate code for an IF with no
ELSE part, I create a single new label:
END. I generate code for the Boolean
expression and then output a BREQL
END instruction, because I want to
skip the THEN part if the expression
is false. Then I generate the THEN
part and finally output the END label
(see figure 3c).
When an IF has an ELSE part. I
create two new labels— ELSE and
END. Again, I first generate the
Boolean expression. Now, if this ex-
pression is false I want to branch to
the ELSE part, so 1 generate a
BREQL ELSE instruction. Then I
generate the THEN part of the code,
but I follow it by a BRANCH END in-
struction so control doesn't fall
through to the ELSE code. I then out-
put the ELSE label followed by the
code for the ELSE part. Finally, I out-
put the END label (see figure 3d).
The READ and
WRITE Statements
The parsing of READ and WRITE
statements is similar; in both cases. I
read a list of expressions and attach
this list to either a READ or a WRITE
node, as the case may be. I also check
each argument to make sure it is of
type INTEGER or CHAR. For a READ
(a) 1 + x = 5 - y»z
I
PUSHC
1
I
PUSH
X
ADD
PUSHC
5
I
PUSH
y
I
PUSH
z
I
MUL
I
SUB
I
EQUAL
(b) a = b AND cod
I
PUSH
a
I
PUSH
b
I
EQUAL
I
BREQL
FALSE
I
PUSH
c
I
PUSH
d
I
NOTE
Q
I
BRANCH
END
| FALSE
I
PUSHC
END:
Figure 4: VM2 code generated for SIMPL expressions.
statement I check to make sure the
argument is a variable.
To generate code for a WRITE state-
ment, I generate the code for each ex-
pression, immediately followed by
either a WRINT or a WRCHAR in-
struction, depending on the type of
the expression. For each variable in
a READ statement, I first generate
either a RDINT or a RDCHAR instruc-
tion, then a POPC with the name of
the variable (see figures 3e and 3f).
Expressions
The parser used for expressions is
similar to the one I described in
"Context-Free Parsing of Arithmetic
Expressions." It has been expanded
to handle variables, function calls, and
Boolean operators, and it has been
made left-associative so that it parses
arithmetic operators in this way: a + b
+ c will be parsed as (a + b) + c rather
than as a + (b + c).
The compiler type checks expres-
sions as their trees are constructed.
Before constructing the tree for a +
b, for example, the compiler makes
sure that a and b have been defined
as variables of type INTEGER. The
Boolean operators AND, OR, and
NOT require Boolean operands. For
relational operators like = and >, it
doesn't matter what type the two
operands are, so long as they are of
the same type.
Because of the way I designed
VM2's instruction set. generating
code for expressions is easy. I first
generate the code to place the
operands on the stack using the in-
structions PUSH (for variables) or
PUSHC (for constants), then I output
the instruction corresponding to the
operator. All operators but AND and
OR have a corresponding instruction.
See figure 4a for the code generated
by an expression.
The operators AND and OR are
special cases because the second
argument shouldn't be evaluated
unless absolutely necessary. I treat
them much like IF statements. For
AND, I first create two new labels,
which III call FALSE and END. I
generate the code for the first argu-
ment, then generate a BREQL FALSE
114 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
PROGRAMMING PROJECT
instruction. After that I generate the
code for the second argument and
then a BRANCH END. Then I output
the label FALSE, followed by a
PUSHC instruction. Finally. 1 output
the END label. This code will have the
following effect at run time: If the first
argument evaluates to FALSE, then a
FALSE (that is, a 0) is pushed on the
stack and the code for the second
argument is skipped. If the first argu-
ment comes out TRUE, then the sec-
ond argument is evaluated, and its
result is the result of the entire AND.
Things are reversed for OR. If the first
argument is TRUE, 1 push TRUE and
skip the second argument; otherwise,
the result of the second argument is
the result of the entire OR. The code
generated for an AND statement is in
figure 4b.
Error Handling
It is notoriously difficult to write a
compiler that can recover gracefully
from an error in the source program
and continue compiling. On the other
hand, you wouldn't want to make the
compiler too lenient when it en-
counters an error— a friend of mine
speaks of how he used to feed interof-
fice memos to a COBOL compiler to
see if they would compile successful-
ly. They often did.
One solution to the error-handling
problem is to stop the compiler after
the first error is found, but this is a
cop-out. I'd like the compiler to find
as many errors as it can so I can try
to fix them all at once. At the same
time, I want to avoid cascades of
errors, where the first error triggers
new ones that wouldn't have ap-
peared if the first error had not oc-
curred. A compiler that frequently
produces error cascades is just as bad
as one that dies after the first error
because you will trust the compiler
only for the first error anyway. Error
cascades are particularly common for
syntax errors because it's hard to
know where to continue parsing when
something unexpected appears.
My compiler is far from ideal at
handling syntax errors, but it deals
with other errors reasonably well. The
basic rule i use in parsing is, if an
expected token does not appear in
the input, pretend it did appear and
continue on without it. For example,
if the keyword PROGRAM does not
appear at the beginning of the pro-
gram, the compiler prints out an error
message and acts as if it did appear.
Similarly, if the program name is
omitted, the compiler prints an error
message, makes up a dummy name,
and continues. Sometimes such errors
are not handled so gracefully. If you
meant to write WHILE a > b DO ...
and instead omitted the WHILE key-
word, the parser would read the iden-
tifier a and begin compiling the state-
ment as if it were a call or assignment.
The resulting error cascade isn't
pretty.
A common source of error cas-
cades is an undeclared variable. Some
compilers will tell you over and over
again that a variable is undeclared,
outputting a message every time the
variable is encountered. A much bet-
ter solution is to print the message
once and then ignore that variable
from then on. I do this by inserting the
variable in the symbol table once it
has been seen. But what type should
it be given? If I decide to make it an
integer when in fact the programmer
intended it to be a Boolean, I will find
myself with a bunch of unnecessary
type errors.
My solution is to give undeclared
variables the special type Unknown.
Unknown is compatible with every
other type, so the type-checking rou-
tines will never find a problem with
a variable of type Unknown.
Implementation Notes
The key to writing a program as large
as a compiler is breaking it up into
small, independent parts. As I said
before, my program is divided into 1 2
modules.
The main module is called Com-
piler. It is short and does little more
than read an input filename and call
the parser. Because of its size, the
parser is divided into three separate
modules: Parser handles the bulk of
SIMPL, ExprParser takes care of ex-
pressions, and Routines is concerned
with procedures and functions.
A common source of
error cascades is an
undeclared variable.
The LexAn module contains the lex-
ical analyzer. The Token module
defines the token data structure as
well as some other useful types and
constants. TypeChecker handles type
checking, of course. Equally obvious
is the function of SymbolTable. The
Symbol module defines the data
structure used for storing identifiers
in the symbol table, and the Node
module defines the data structure
used to construct parse trees. Node
also contains the important tree-
building procedures.
Two other modules constitute the
compiler's back end. CodeGen takes
parse trees and calls procedures in
CodeWrite to actually output the VM2
instructions.
My motivation for dividing the work
up as I did was to distribute the load
evenly. The code generator's time is
split between the abstract work of
generating code from parse trees,
handled by CodeGen, and the nitty-
gritty details of outputting VM2
assembly-language instructions,
handled by CodeWrite. The parser
definitely has the hardest job in this
compiler, so I tried to make its tasks
as simple as I could. The lexical
analyzer looks up keywords in the
symbol table and provides several
routines that handle the work of
generating syntax errors, thus reliev-
ing the parser of those burdens. The
tree-building routines of the Node
module not only construct trees but
do much of the type checking as well.
The code generator need only be
given the parse tree to generate code.
Conclusion
As it stands now, the compiler is in-
complete. The implementation of pro-
cedures and functions remains to be
done, but the framework is in place.
At heart, all compilers resemble the
program described here. ■
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
115
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
The Tandy 600
AND THE
Tandy 3000
A laptop computer
with disk storage and
an IBM PC AT clone
Editor's note: The following is a BYTE prod-
uct description. \t is not a review. We pro-
vide an advance look at these new products
because we feel they are significant. This
description is based on a look at a production
version of the Tandy 600 and at a prototype
Tandy 3000.
Anew Tandy Corporation
laptop computer and an
IBM PC AT clone debuted
this fall (see photo 1). An-
nounced on October 28th, the
lapanese-made Tandy 600 is an
80C88-based laptop machine with a
maximum RAM (random-access read/
write memory) potential of 224K
bytes and a built-in 360K-byte 3 '/2-inch
disk drive. A 9 '/2-pound machine with
a flip-up 80-character by 16-line LCD
(liquid-crystal display), the Tandy 600
costs $1 599. Unveiled at COMDEX in
Las Vegas, the Tandy 3000. a clone of
IBM's PC AT, carries a price tag as low
as $2 599.
The Tandy 600
Product designers at Tandy describe
the Tandy 600 as a machine with the
features that users of the Model 100
and the Tandy 200 most often re-
quested: an 80-column screen, a disk
drive, and more RAM. Tandy also
availed itself of the opportunity to
upgrade its previous portable com-
puter software in this addition to its
laptop computer line.
To address more RAM without com-
plicated bank-switching hardware and
software, Tandy chose to power the
600 with a CMOS (complementary
metal-oxide semiconductor) version
of the Intel 8088 microprocessor run-
ning at 3.07 MHz. Standard RAM is
a paltry 32 K bytes, but 96K-byte RAM
upgrade kits are available for $399.95
per kit, plus installation by Tandy. The
Tandy 600 can accommodate up to
224K bytes of RAM. Thus, a Tandy
600 with maximum RAM will cost a
tidy $2398.90 plus memory installa-
tion costs.
The 80-column by 16-line LCD is ad-
justable for lighting conditions and
has a matte finish to reduce glare. The
9- by 2 '/2-inch LCD flips up to reveal
a keyboard similar to the Tandy 200s.
This 72-key, typewriter-style keyboard
offers 10 function keys, 4 cursor-
control keys, a Label key, and a Num
Lock key to turn letter keys on the
right side of the keyboard into a
numeric keypad.
The built-in disk drive is a 3 '/2-inch.
360K-byte drive located at the right
rear of the case. Using a limited
operating system called Microsoft
Works 1.20, the drive can store text
files or programs. For example, Micro-
soft Multiplan, a bundled spreadsheet
program supplied in ROM (read-only
memory), can be copied onto disk so
that the ROM socket can be used for
a custom application or for the op-
tional BASIC ROM ($129.95). BASIC
also can be saved to disk and loaded
into RAM when needed.
All this hardware can be powered
for up to 11 hours (with minimal disk
activity) by built-in nicad (nickel-
cadmium) batteries or by an external
AC adapter/charger. The adapter/
charger charges the nicad batteries
up to a maximum of 14 hours when
it is attached.
The other standard features of the
Tandy 600 include an internal 300-bps
(bits per second) modem with auto-
dial/auto-answer and host modes, an
expansion bus for an external disk
drive, a parallel printer port, an
RS-232C serial port, and a built-in
clock that can power up the machine
at a preset time to take a phone call
or run an application.
Tandy 600 Software
Bearing a coincidental resemblance to
the DeskMate software that Tandy
bundles with its MS-DOS computers,
the Tandy 600s software features an
operating system and five applica-
tions. The System Manager is a shell
around Microsoft Works that handles
file management for the disk drive
and RAM. The five bundled applica-
tions are Word, a word processor
whose files are compatible with the
Microsoft word processor of the same
name; Calendar, an alarm-driven ap-
pointment scheduler: File, a database
manager; Telcom, for driving telecom-
munications activity; and Multiplan,
reportedly a "99.5 percent version" of
the IBM PC spreadsheet. In addition,
a four-function memory calculator is
available at any time as well as an
118 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
by G. Michael Vose
alarm function that can be preset to
act as a reminder.
Microsoft Works was originally de-
veloped for the Heath ZP-1 50 laptop
machine and looks vaguely like MS-
DOS. Its functions are limited to for-
matting and copying disks, copying
files from RAM to disk (or vice versa),
listing or deleting files from RAM or
disk, renaming files, and running ap-
plications. You invoke these functions
by selection from a menu. The System
Manager does allow wild-card charac-
ters in command operations. In spite
of the passing resemblance to MS-
DOS, however, the Tandy 600 disk for-
mat is not compatible with any other
3 '/2-inch disk format. The System
Manager also has a Set command to
adjust the time for the sleep mode, to
switch the machine's beep tone on
and off, to preset power-up date and
time for the wake-up mode, and to
specify printer parameters (margins,
page length and width, and con-
tinuous or sheet feed).
The text editor offers broader fea-
tures than the rudimentary editors
that came with the Model 100 and the
Tandy 200. Called Word, this re-
vamped editor provides more com-
plete formatting functions, including
right justification, multiple format
lines, and automatic page numbering,
plus enhanced editing commands like
global search and replace. Liberal use
of the function keys to implement a
variety of text selection operations,
(continued)
G. Michael Vose is a senior technical editor
at BYTE. He can be contacted at POB 372,
Hancock. NH 03449.
Photo 1: The Tandy 3000 and the Tandy 600.
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE
119
TANDY 600 & 3000
The liveliest game
in personal computers
today is building
IBM PC AT clones.
such as select word or select
sentence, make copying, moving, and
deleting text a simple operation. You
can merge two documents and alter
the format of any part of a document.
The appointment scheduler bun-
dled with the Tandy 600 can be set
to sound an alarm to remind users of
appointments and will even display a
text message at the bottom of the
screen to explain the alarm. This
Calendar application uses two calen-
dar types: a month calendar and daily
diaries. The diaries supply detailed in-
formation for individual days in the
month calendars.
The Tandy 600s database manager,
called File, can sort records alphabet-
ically, numerically, or chronologically
and search the database according to
numerous search criteria. Each File
database can provide up to 4095
records having up to 64 fields of up
to 230 characters per field.
One of the most practical applica-
tions for a laptop computer is its use
as a smart terminal for telecommuni-
cations. The Tandy 600's Telcom pro-
gram drives an internal 300-bps
modem and offers auto-answer, auto-
dial, wake-up, and host modes. With
the proper script, the Telcom software
can turn the computer on, call an-
other computer, and upload or down-
load files to RAM or disk. It supports
the XMODEM protocol for error
detection during data transmission.
Telcom displays its status (on-line or
off-line) plus connect time on the
Tandy 600's sixteenth screen line; this
static display naturally draws the eye
away from the scrolling text just above
it and may confuse some first-time
users.
Finally, there is Multiplan, extended
from the Tandy 200 version to be very
close to the IBM PC version. Multiplan
data can be lifted from a spreadsheet
and pasted into a Word document,
and the program can generate SYLK
files for transporting data to other
programs. There are some limitations
to this and all Tandy 600 applications;
for example, the maximum size for
any data file is 64 K bytes.
Operation
The Tandy 600 features an automatic
power-off, or sleep, function that turns
the machine off after a user-selectable
time period (the default setting is 5
minutes). Disk-intensive operations
will decrease the time the machine
can function on batteries between
charges. One hour of disk I/O (input/
output), for example, reduces the
operating time between charges to 8
hours.
RAM in the Tandy 600 is battery-
backed so that the machine can be
turned off without losing the contents
of memory. But the disk-storage capa-
bility of the machine will greatly ease
the pressure to clutter up RAM with
dozens of files.
An especially attractive feature is
the potential for placing custom ap-
plications in the ROM slot occupied
by the Multiplan ROM. Using standard
272 56 EPROMs (erasable program-
mable read-only memories) and a
Molex chip carrier for easy removal/in-
sertion of chips, you can plug in any
new application designed to run on
the Tandy 600. Software developers
can get all the information necessary
to customize 8088 applications from
the owner's manual or the separate
hardware service manual (available
for "less than $2 5").
Tandy supplies a 302-page, indexed,
spiral-bound owner's manual that is
organized by application. Each sec-
tion provides a quick reference to that
application's functions, followed by an
extensive tutorial.
The Tandy 3000
The liveliest game in personal com-
puters today is building clones of
IBM's PC AT. At least a dozen clones
had been announced through
September of this year and most of-
fered something IBM didn't. The only
surprising thing about the Tandy AT
clone, called the Tandy 3000, is that
it took the company so long to get the
machine to market.
Made by Tandy in Fort Worth, the
Tandy 3000 claims a 33 percent
speed increase over the AT due to a
higher clock speed (8 MHz versus 6
MHz) and single-wait-state operation
(as opposed to two wait states in the
AT). A standard Tandy 3000 offers
512K bytes of RAM and a 20-mega-
byte hard disk and a 1.2-megabyte
floppy disk. The cabinet has room for
an additional disk drive, either fixed
or floppy. The machine supports four
disk drives altogether, two fixed and
two floppy, including a 360K-byte
floppy.
A Tandy 3000 with two floppy
drives, one 360K-byte and one 1.2-
megabyte quad-density drive, costs
$2 599. The same machine with a 20-
megabyte fixed-disk drive in place of
one of the floppy drives carries a
$3 599 price tag.
RAM in the Tandy 3000 is expand-
able to a full 16 megabytes; the
motherboard holds 640K bytes (using
2 56K-byte dynamic RAMs) and 2-
megabyte expansion boards are
scheduled for January 1986 shipment.
These memory-expansion boards can
occupy up to six AT expansion slots;
two XT slots are available as well.
Other standard equipment includes
battery-backed CMOS RAM and a
real-time clock, plus a serial/parallel
adapter that uses an XT-compatible
expansion half-slot to provide one
serial and one parallel port. The key-
board is a copy of the AT keyboard
and is not compatible with the Tandy
1000/2000 keyboard.
To reduce the cost of the computer,
Tandy engineers eliminated the key
that disables the keyboard and locks
the case of an AT. Utilizing 2 56K-byte
dynamic RAMs reduces power
demands sufficiently to allow the use
of a 175-watt power supply. The
power supply is switchable between
120- and 240-volt operation via a
Molex jumper inside the power sup-
ply's case. A two-speed, thermostati-
cally controlled fan cools the internal
{continued)
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124 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 355
by Roy E. Kimbrell
English
Recognition
The ultimate
in user-friendliness
Plain English is hardly ever
used to communicate with
a computer. This is unfor-
tunate because it can be
very effective, and programs that
recognize and use relatively complex
English sentences have been written
for microcomputers. English gives you
a variety of ways to express complex
actions with a minimum of training
and program interaction. Menus, on
the other hand, are often highly com-
plex and cumbersome— both for the
user and the programmer. Special lan-
guages are difficult to learn and to
design and implement correctly.
Some applications seem to demand
a natural-language controlling mech-
anism (for example, database pro-
grams and games). When you design
these kinds of programs, it is hard to
predict the questions or commands
a user might enter. Even in the largest
and most expensive custom database
systems, there always seem to be
questions outside the scope of the
programming.
However. English has been used suc-
cessfully to control database pro-
grams. The first public success was
LUNAR (Lunar Sciences Natural-Lan-
guage Information System), which
allowed scientists to query a large file
of physical and chemical data on the
lunar rock samples brought back by
the Apollo 17 mission in December
1972. More recently. Larry Harris of
Artificial Intelligence Corporation has
been successfully selling a database-
retrieval system called ROBOT (now
INTELLECT) that uses natural English.
It runs on IBM machines and licenses
for tens of thousands of dollars.
R:base CLOUT by MicroRIM. another
English-based database-retrieval
system, runs on microcomputers, but
it's not cheap either.
Several game designers have recog-
nized the benefits of using English to
communicate with computers and
have tried to use it as their control-
ling mechanism. However, the ap-
proach they take seems a bit limited.
The games often have trouble recog-
nizing what should be valid directions
or questions by the players.
[continued]
Roy E. Kimbrell is a senior programmer/
analyst with Planning Research Corporation
(1410 Wall St.. Bellevue. NE 68005). He
has one M.S. in computer science from the
University of Nebraska and another in
meteorology from Creighton University.
1.
1
Jfc*/*
ts~
ILLUSTRATED BY IERZY KOLACZ
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 125
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
Both games and database programs
must be able to react in many com-
plex and unpredictable ways. You can
achieve this versatility by creating a
library of functions or routines that do
fundamental things. The user must be
able to combine these functions in an
endless variety of ways. English rec-
ognition is a surprisingly useful tool
for this; it has been used in university
labs for years. Its techniques have
been developed to the extent that
now you can apply them even on
microcomputers.
English Recognition
There are two parts to applying
English understanding to an applica-
tion. The first is recognition— observing
that the text forms grammatically cor-
rect English sentences and identifying
such elements as subjects and verbs.
The second part is understanding— the
ability to react to a sentence in a
meaningful manner.
Suppose we have a program named
Higgins (after Professor Henry Higgins
of My Fair lady fame), a fictional ex-
pert in the science of speech. And
suppose Higgins knows about wines;
that is, it interfaces with a wine
database. A question such as "How
much does a 1976 bottle of Cabernet
Sauvignon cost?" should be meaning-
ful to Higgins, while "Where can 1 find
a date for tonight?" would not be,
even though it is a respectable English
sentence. Higgins has files of data on
wines and knows the name for each
field in those records, but it knows
about nothing else. It has no way of
understanding anything about "date"
or "tonight."
Higgins can recognize valid English
sentences and break them up into
identified pieces. It identifies the sub-
jects, verbs, and other parts of speech
in a manner that makes them usable
in other parts of the program. Once
the information is recognized, using
it to do something can be easy.
Database questions can be simple.
Higgins's verbs are usually forms of
"to be" or "to do." Its subjects are
usually either "wh-" words such as
who, when, or where, or phrases such
as how much. The objects with their
Adjective (ADJ)
Examples: red, heavy
Binder (BINDER)
Words: because, so, since, until, before, while
Complement (COMP)
Words: that, to, whether, for
Conjunction (CONJ)
Words: and, or
Determiner (DET)
Number: singular (S), plural (P;
Question: yes (Y), no (N)
Words: a, an, each, every, few (P), her (SP), his (SP)
how many (PY), its
(SP), many (P), most (P), my (SP), no, our (SP), some (P), that, the (SP), their
(SP), these (P), this, those (P
, what (SPY), which (SPY), whose (SPY)
Noun (NOUN)
Number: singular, plural
Case: subjective (SUBJ), objective (OBJ), possessive (POSS)
Examples: sky, house, committee's (POSS), sheep (singular, plural)
Number (NUMBER)
Examples: first, second, third, twenty-one
Preposition (PREP)
Words: in, on, at, for, without,
next to, in spite of, in between, by, to, of
Pronoun (PRON)
Number: singular, plural
Person: first, second, third
Case: SUBJ, OBJ, POSS
Question: yes, no
Words:
SUBJ
OBJ
POSS, OBJ
first 1
me, myself
mine
second you
you, yourself
yours
third she
her, herself
hers
third he
him, himself
his
third it
it, itself
its
first plural we
us, ourselves
ours
second plural you
you, yourselves
yours
third plural they
them, themselves
theirs
OBJ: this, that, these
(plural), those (plural)
OBJ, yes: who. whom, whose, what
SUBJ, OBJ: Pick one
from each column.
any
thing
some
body
every
one
no
where
place
time
how
Figure 1: The definitions of the various word types according to Higgins. Italics indicate defau
126 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
Verb (VERB)
Type: nonauxiliary (NONAUX), to be (BE), to do (DO), to have (HAVE),
modal (MODAL)
Form: infinitive (INFIN), present (PRES), past (PAST), present participle
(PRESPART), past participle (PASTPART), third-person present singular
(THIRDSING)
Transitivity (Trans): intransitive (INTRANS) — no object; transitive (TRANS) —
one object: bitransitive (BITRANS) — two objects
Most verbs are nonauxiliary, and a common dictionary can give their forms and
transitivities. Transitivity is expanded a bit in Higgins with the addition of "bitran-
sitive." "Gave," as in "I gave my love a cherry," is bitransitive. Although the
default transitivity is TRANS, it wouldn't hurt to define each verb as all three, IN-
TRANS, TRANS, and BITRANS. Although this will allow some nonsensical
sentences, it might be a great simplification. Because of this, transitivity isn't
specified for the verb descriptions below. MODAL verbs are "helping" verbs and
work in conjunction with other verbs.
BE:
DO:
HAVE:
be
INFIN
am, are
PRES
was, were
PAST
being
PRESPART
been
PASTPART
is
THIRDSING
do
INFIN, PRES
did
PAST
doing
PRESPART
done
PASTPART
does
THIRDSING
have
INFIN, PRES
had
PAST, PASTPART
having
PRESPART
has
THIRDSING
MODAL: Words: can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must. All BE,
DO, and HAVE verbs are also MODAL.
Particles: This is not a type; a particle is a sequence of words used as a single
word; for example, "next to" is used as a preposition. Particles are used mostly
as prepositions, verbs, and determiners, although nouns, especially proper
nouns, are frequently particles.
Determiners: how many, all the, all this, all these, and other combinations of
"all" and a determiner
Half a, half an, and other combinations of "half" and a determiner
Prepositions: next to, in spite of, in between
Verbs: Pick one from each column.
put
out
turn
on
get, got
off
get it, got it
in
go, went, gone
up
take, took
down
shut
away
come, came
around
descriptive modifiers are found in the
database. In the sentence about the
bottle of wine, Higgins considers "bot-
tle" and "cost" to be objects with the
limitations on "bottle" that it be
Cabernet Sauvignon and 1976. "Bot-
tle" is the key to one or more fields
in a bottle record on specific wines in
the database. Though several fields
may need to be searched, the name
Cabernet Sauvignon can be found.
Pattern Matching
Recognizing English is a matter of pat-
tern matching. The patterns of a lan-
guage are what we refer to when we
say someone speaks a foreign lan-
guage well or when we complain of
ungrammatical speech. Patterns occur
in poetry as well, but these are as
much a matter of the poem's meaning
as they are of how the words are con-
nected in phrases and sentences. The
patterns we are looking for are word
patterns— the patterns of English
grammar.
One tool we use in pattern matching
is the ATN (augmented transition net-
work). It's been around a long time
and has proved itself valuable in a
variety of applications. For a discus-
sion of how to build and use Higgins's
networks, see the text box "English
Grammar Network" on page 128.
The Grammar and
the Dictionary
The basic unit used in Higgins is the
individual word (see figure 1). [Editor's
note: C-language source listings of H1G-
GINS.C BTREE.C BTREE.H, and DICT.H
are available for downloading on BYTEnet
listings. (617) 861-9764. | In the gram-
mar we'll use, there are the traditional
types of words: nouns, verbs, and ad-
jectives. There are also some rather
special types: relatives, binders, com-
plements, determiners, and others. In
Higgins's dictionary, words are di-
vided into 12 types. All but three of
them have a limited number of words.
Nouns (including proper nouns), ad-
jectives, and verbs make up the bulk
of English words. A word may be used
in several different ways and therefore
may have several different types.
[continued)
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 127
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
English Grammar Network
Figures A and B provide examples
of simple networks. Figure A rec-
ognizes the word "cat." A circle with
a number in it is called a state and a
curved arrow with a letter beside it is
called a transition. In this network the
program starts in stateO and reads
characters. If the next character read
is a "c." the program goes on to statel
otherwise it reports failure and quits.
if the program reaches state3 (the
double-circled state), it reports success.
Figure B recognizes either "cat" or
"cow." In statel . if the next character
is an "a." the program takes the transi-
tion to state2; if it is an "o." it takes the
Figure A: A simple network that recognizes the word "cat''
Figure B: A simple network that recognizes either "cat" or "cow'
Figure C: This network involves relaxing the rule that requires a unique set of
transition values on each arc. Since there are two "a" transitions, the network
follows both.
transition to state4: if it is something
else, the program reports failure. If the
program reaches state3, it recognizes
"cat"; if it reaches state5. "cow."
Networks can match more than just
simple character strings. The value
used to decide which, if any. transition
to take can be a single character, a
class of characters, a word, or a class
of words. You can use this kind of net-
work to write a recognizer for a com-
puter language where each transition
is based on specific words (reserved
words) or on categories of words (vari-
ables, numbers, strings, and so on). In
fact, this idea is basic to the way many
compilers are actually written.
In figures A and B. each transition
has a unique value at each state. But
if duplicate transition values aren't
allowed, the network can become ex-
ceedingly complex. Look at figure C.
This network matches character strings
composed of an unlimited number of
"a" and "b" characters followed by the
sequence "abb." Compare figures C
and D. They both match the same
string of characters, but figure D is ob-
viously more complex. In the network
in figure C, the question is which of the
two "a" transitions to take out of stateO.
The answer is. both of them.
You need a simple mechanism for
following several paths simultaneous-
ly as you read transition values (char-
acters, words, or whatever). If there is
a failure, an improper value en-
countered at one of the states, you
stop traveling that particular path but
continue all other paths as long as you
are reading valid transition values. If
you stop traveling all paths, then you
report a failure. Eventually, you either
reach the end of the string or reach a
success state along some path.
Take the case of the network in figure
C. Suppose the string you are going to
test is "ababb." You read the first "a"
and go to both stateO and statel . Then
you read the first "b" and go to both
stateO and state2. Next you read the
second "a" and quit at state2 but con-
tinue at stateO and go to statel . When
128 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
you read the second "b," you continue
at stateO and go to state2. Then you
read the last "b" and stay at stateO and
go to state3. Finally, you read the end
of the string and quit at stateO but
report success at state4.
Writing a Network
Recursively
There is a simple mechanism for travel-
ing several paths— recursion. Although
it isn't simultaneous, the effect is the
same. Look at listing A. A state is now
a separate function that tests its transi-
tion values and either calls the next
function or reports failure. Where you
can take several transitions on the
same value (as in stateO), a reported
failure along one path simply allows
the program to try other paths.
In the function stateO in listing A, loca-
tion is a local variable because integers
are passed by value. When you first call
stateO, the calling line of code might
look like this:
if (stateO("ababb"0)) success();
In other words, the variable location is
initially 0.
StateO checks the first character. If it
is an "a," stateO calls statel passing it
the string and the location of the next
character. If statel returns success, then
stateO can report success because
statel can be successful only if state2
and state3 are also successful. If the
character checked in stateO is a "b."
stateO calls itself (recursively) with the
location of the next character. If the
character is neither an "a" nor a "b,"
it is an invalid character and stateO
reports a failure. This failure never oc-
curs in a valid string of characters
because the transitions to statel and
beyond are tested first and given a
chance to succeed.
The recursive method has consider-
able advantages in simplicity. The
amount of code necessary to imple-
ment a network is considerably less
when the network allows duplicate
transition values than when it does not.
{continued)
Figure D: This network performs the same function as the one in figure C.
However, it is much more complex because it has a unique transition value on
each arc and follows only one path.
Figure E: The WH network replaces two arcs and states and matches "wh'.
DECEMBER 1985 • B Y T E 129
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
Interestingly, both kinds of networks
are equally powerful in describing and
matching patterns.
Subnetworks
Calling a state as a subroutine or func-
tion has other advantages. You can
build networks where a transition from
one state to the next depends on the
successful matching of an entire net-
work, not just the matching of a single
transition value. For example. look at
figures E and F. The network matches
where" or "whose" but the "er" and
"os" are recognized by a subnetwork
If the network reaches a success state,
it has matched either "where" or
"whose."
A collection, or packet, of information
created as the network runs is a con-
Listing A: A pseudocode implementation of the pattern matching described
by figure C. A transition to a new state is made by recursively calling the
next state. Although the paths aren't taken simultaneously.
the effect is the
same, since the local variables at each state keep a current
■place marker in
the string being tested.
function stateO: arguments -
string, ar
array of characters.
location,
an integer.
if the character at location in
string is 'a',
call statel passing string,
location+1.
if statel returns success,
return success.
otherwise, call stateO passing string, location+1.
if stateO returns success,
return success.
otherwise, fail.
if the character at location in
string is 'b',
call stateO passing string
location+1.
if stateO returns success,
return success.
otherwise, fail.
otherwise, fail.
function statel: arguments -
string, ar
array of characters.
location,
an integer.
if the character at location in
string is 'b',
call state2 passing string
location + 1.
if state2 returns success,
return success.
otherwise, fail.
otherwise, fail.
function state2: arguments -
string, ar
1 array of characters.
location,
an integer.
if the character at location in
string is V,
call state3 passing string
location+1.
if state3 returns success.
return success.
otherwise, fail.
otherwise, fail.
function state3: arguments -
string, ar
i array of characters.
location,
an integer.
if the character at location in
string is end,
call state4 passing string
location+1.
if state4 returns success,
return success.
otherwise, fail.
otherwise, fail.
function state4: arguments -
string, an array of characters.
location,
an integer.
return success.
venient mechanism for keeping track
of the path taken. (The C language calls
them structures: in Pascal they are
records.) Because you don't want to
limit the system's ability to process very
long data strings, you usually allocate
storage for the packets from the run-
time heap and fill them with informa-
tion as the called network processes
the data string, if the called network is
unsuccessful, it frees the storage used
by the packets and reports failure. If the
called network is successful, it reports
success and returns a pointer to the
string of information packets. Once a
subnetwork— or any network— has com-
pleted its task, the packet contains the
significant information found during
the matching process.
For English recognition, the packets
must have a description that varies
depending on the kind of information
placed in them. Understanding how to
use this information requires some
comprehension of the reasons behind
the design of a network that recognizes
valid English sentences. Such a net-
work is based on English grammar.
Grammar Like You Never
Saw in School
We humans are extraordinary pattern
matchers. We quickly recognize shapes
and sounds and even large and com-
plex combinations of shapes and
sounds. We also have the ability to
create these patterns. A pattern is a set
of rules. We create shapes and sounds
that fit patterns— that is, we create ac-
cording to a set of rules (even if the
rules aren't well understood).
English grammar works the same
way. The grammar is the pattern you
use to create and understand English
sentences. It is also basically the pat-
tern you use to write a program that
recognizes English sentences. (The
grammar used by Higgins is a bit
permissive— it lets a few ungrammatical
things pass by.)
Higgins's grammar is based on net-
works, but instead of going from one
state to another based upon a specific
character, the transition is based on
word type. Examples of these networks
are in figures G and H and in table A.
The program might make a transition
based on whether the incoming word
is a noun, a verb, or another kind of
130 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
word. The program can also make a
transition based on whether the next
sequence of words matches a pat-
tern—a pattern defined by a sub-
network.
When making a transition based
upon a single word, the program looks
up the word in the system dictionary
to determine its type (noun, verb, ad-
jective, or preposition). There are also
some rather special kinds of words that
might be unfamiliar— relatives, binders,
complements, determiners, and others.
Luckily, these groups of words are
small, and once you enter them into
the dictionary, you can usually ignore
them.
All of the words the recognizer pro-
gram might encounter must be in the
dictionary. It doesn't really understand
English, and can't use the context of the
sentence to make any guesses about
what the word might mean. Some rec-
ognizers have the ability to ask about
the type of an unfamiliar word. Since
most of the words not in the dictionary
are usually nouns and adjectives, this
is a reasonably easy thing to do.
The network grammar for English
that Higgins uses is close to one de-
veloped by Terry Winograd and de-
scribed in considerable detail in his
language As a Cognitive Process. Higgins's
grammar bears considerable resem-
blance to others that are similarly con-
structed, such as the network grammar
used in LUNAR. The purpose of
Winograd's grammar is to define English
syntax. This is a little different from
only trying to recognize valid English.
However, it works well in a large vari-
ety of situations and applications.
Making a transition based on word
type is easy. You look the word up in
the dictionary. If one of its usages cor-
responds to the one demanded by the
transition (and some possible other
conditions are met), then you take the
transition.
Some other conditions are usually
checked also. These conditions may
vary at each state. They are special
checks that ensure that the path taken
is valid. They are often important in
deciding which of several possible
paths to take. In addition, most states
require special actions. These are all
associated with recording information
about the sentence or phrase in the
Figure F: The X subnetwork replaces arcs and states matching either "er" or "os'.'
5 Pronoun
6: Proper
_ 8:Send
NP •■{
S — v//l.Det
\ 2 Jum p
9 Send
^-^ -~/ 4: Noun
( 9 J
V J 16- '3
3 Adjective
12: Number
13: Verb
14 Noun
( h I
/ 18:Conj-NP
"V 7PP
\ 10:S/C
J ll-.S/r
Figure G: The NP [noun phrase) network.
packets. Sometimes the actions create
implied constructions, such as the
"you" implied in the sentence "Go!"
The transitions based on matching a
network are similar. Instead of match-
ing a word type, you match a network.
When making a transition based on
word type, each transition uses up one
word. That is, the first word in the
sentence is checked at the first state,
the second word at the second, and so
forth. When making transitions based
on matching a network, you use up as
many words as necessary to make the
match. If you fail to find a match, then
no words are used up.
The networks in figures G and H are
examples of networks used to describe
a grammar. Table A specifies the con-
ditions and actions associated with the
transitions of the NP (noun phrase)
network.
English sentences are built from
noun phrases, prepositional phrases,
and verb phrases. A noun phrase
describes the actor in a sentence or
perhaps the person, place, or thing
acted upon. The NP (noun phrase)
network (see figure G and table A)
builds an NP packet that contains
pointers to determiner (Det), header
[continued)
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ENGLISH RECOGNITION
(Head), describer (Desc), and qualifier
(Qual) packets. These are packets
returned from calls to the other net-
works. The NP packet has places for
four features: number (Num), Person,
question (Ques). and Case. Num may
be singular or plural, no default Per-
son may be first, second, or third,
default third. Ques may be yes or no.
default no. Case may be SUBJ (sub-
jective), OBJ (objective), or POSS
(possessive), no default. The current
word under examination is kept in a
packet of its own. The values in the
packet are filled from the dictionary.
The features of the current-word packet
depend on the type of the current
word.
Associated with each arc in the
network are initialize: (initializations), if:
(conditions), and then: (actions). See
table A. Any of these may be absent.
The initializations require the definition
of a new packet before calling a sub-
network. The packet is empty except
for defaults and the initializations. The
conditions are checked after the word
type on the arc has been matched with
the current word or the subnetwork on
the arc has reported success and has
returned a packet. The current word
may enter into these conditions. If the
conditions are met, the actions are
taken, and a transition to the next state
may be made.
Hold is a global variable used to
temporarily hold a copy of a packet.
When the copy is made, the source of
the copy must be made empty as its
emptiness is a flag for further action.
Likewise, if Hold is copied somewhere,
it must also be emptied.
Table A: The transitions of the NP network.
1. then
5. then:
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
then:
then:
then:
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
NPNum = current-word. Num;
NRQues = current-word.Ques; NRDet = current-word;
none.
then: Append current-word to NP.Desc;
if: current-word. Num = = NRNum or NPNum is empty;
then: NPNum = current-word. Num; NP. Head = current-word;
NPNum = current-word. Num;
NPPerson = current-word. Person; NPQues = current-word.Ques;
NPHead = current-word;
NPNum = current-word. Num; NPHead = current-word;
Append current-word to NPQual;
Success; NP. Case = NPHead.Case; return the NP packet;
if: Hold is an NP;
then: Success; Empty and return Hold;
initialize: S/c.Subj = copy of the current NP packet;
S/c.Mood = REL; S/c.MV = dummy VP = "to be"
dictionary values;
then: Append S/c to NPQual;
initialize: Hold = copy of the current NP packet;
S/r.Mood = WHREL;
then: Append S/r to NPQual;
then: Append current-word to NP.Desc;
if: VPForm == PRESPART or PASTPART;
then: Append VP to NP.Desc;
if: current-word.Num == SINGULAR;
then: Append current-word to NPDesc;
not used.
if: NPHead is not a pronoun;
Note: The only thing being tested on this arc is the occurrence of the
string 's indicating possession (POSS).
then: Create a new NP packet; copy the current NP packet
into the new NP packet; new-NRCase = POSS;
set all NP values to defaults; NPDet = new-NP;
not used.
Note: If the current word is a conjunction, then the NP network is
recursively called; if an NP is returned, form a list of these NPs.
132 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
A prepositional phrase is a sequence
Form may be INFIN (infinitive), PRES-
two features: voice and mood. The
of words containing a noun phrase and
ENT (present). PAST (past), PASTPART
voice may be ACTIVE or PASSIVE,
beginning with a preposition. Its
(past participle), PRESPART (present
default ACTIVE. The mood may be
purpose is to modify or qualify a noun
participle), or THIRDSING (third
DECL (declarative), INT (interrogative),
phrase. The PP (prepositional phrase)
person present singular). Trans may be
IMPER (imperative), BOUND (bound
network builds a PP packet, which
INTRANS (intransitive), TRANS
by a binder), REL (relative), or WHREL
contains pointers to Prep (preposition)
(transitive), or BITRANS (bitransitive).
(who, what, why, where, when relative),
and Prepobj (preposition object)
Type may be NONAUX (nonauxiliary.
default DECL. These features are used
packets. These are either packets
that is, acting alone), BE, DO, HAVE,
to report the form of the sentence and
returned from calls to the NP network
or MODAL (supportive words, such as
to direct processing.
or current-word packets.
"can," "could," "may," "should," "must,"
The S/ network is shown in figure H.
The verb phrase describes the action
etc.).
NP, PP. VP, S/, Jump, and Send refer
taken in a sentence. It might be a single
The S/ (sentence) network builds a
to either a network to be entered or
verb or a series of words. The VP (verb
packet, S, that has places for pointers
to special transitions to be taken. The
phrase) network builds a VP packet
to Subj (subject), DO (direct object), 10
other labels (Noun, Verb, Particle,
that has pointers to Verb packets,
(indirect object), MV (main verb),
Binder, Rel, and so forth) are all word
current-word packets of type Verb.
Binder (binder), Auxs (auxiliaries),
types or usages.
They form a list starting at the VR Verbs
Mods (modifiers), and QE (question
The NP, VP, and PP networks match
(verb phrase.verbs) pointer. Similar to
element) packets. These are the
noun phrases, prepositional phrases,
a verb, the VP packet has Form (tense).
packets returned from the NP, PP, VP,
and verb phrases. The S/ network is
transitivity (Trans), and Type features.
and S/ networks. It also has places for
(continued)
13 Prep (for)
J^—~ y s "
[ » 1 ( y
s/«
) ( z )
\. 15 Comp ( to)
s/ ' V^ r-
30: Binder/ /^^
•^-—^20-NP j
/ /19:Verb
\ / 29 Verb
^^^ I / 27: Particle
12 Send
6.NP /
\ \ / J NP
7: Jump /
\ / 16 S/«
2VejJi__^^\ \ / [J
18.S/X /
f^\( 21 NP ^V' "
\^^ ^^s^V"^\^4 Verb ^ ~S/
^~^ ~~~^s- <S~ N 9:PP
s *\ a ) — ( b
) "T c Jl 5 NP Yd]
( , 1 1 10 PP
A J ) ii pp
22: NP /
ji^^_^y ^^~^~~ ^_^— -
^^^ ^ ' 28 PP
Jump
/ 3 Verb 8
I 23: PP /
s/c 26Particle 17
S/I
2t-Re\\y .. ./
V J 25 NP
S/r
Figure H: The SI (sentence) network.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 133
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
rather special. The main (sentence) net-
work can be entered at the state des-
ignated by the letter following the slant
(e.g., S/x is entered at state*). This is
a recursive call and control returns to
the calling state, not states, just as if the
NP or PP network were called. If the
use of the S/ network call seems far-
fetched, consider "For |oe to eat spicy
food is unusual." The phrase "For |oe
to eat spicy food" is matched by the
S/x network.
The Jump and Send transitions are
special in that they don't match a word
or phrase. The Jump only asks that the
special conditions be met; if they are,
the transition is made without reading
the current word, which is then tried
at the next transition
The Send transition isn't really a
transition at all. It is used to report suc-
cess. If the special conditions at the
state are met. the special actions are
carried out and a success indication is
returned to the calling state. If control
returns to the caller of statea. a
sentence has been recognized. The
return goes through all of the states
called before it reaches the Send
transition.
Listing B: A pseudocode representation of a typical {skeleton) state
in Wiggins.
function stateO:
arguments -
curword — points to the current word packet,
packet — points to the packet to be filled in.
— An attempt to make a transition based on matching a word type:
if curword is a NOUN, — or whatever. . .
if special conditions,
perform special actions.
call state1(curword.next, packet).
if statel returns success,
return success and the packet.
— An attempt to make a transition based on a subnetwork's success:
create an NP-packet.
call NP(curword, NP-packet).
if NP returns success,
— Presumably, curword has been modified to point to a
word past the sequence matched by the subnetwork,
if special conditions,
perform special actions,
call state2(curword, packet).
if state2 returns success,
return success and the packet.
— A Jump:
if special conditions,
perform special actions,
call state3(curword, packet).
if state3 returns success,
return success and the packet.
— A Send:
if special conditions,
perform special actions,
return success and the packet
— If we got this far, we've failed,
return failure.
The simplest sentence matched by
the network is a one-word sentence,
such as "Go!" or "Run!" Statea is called
(see figure H). Eventually, the Jump
transition to statec- is taken, "go" or
"run" is recognized as a verb, and the
verb transition to statec is taken. After
a few attempts, the Jump transition to
statee is taken, where the Send transi-
tion is finally taken. Now. success is
reported to statec, which reports suc-
cess to statec-. which reports success
to statea. which reports success to its
caller. The sentence has been success-
fully analyzed.
Coding a Recognizer
Listing B is a skeleton state. It shows,
in pseudocode, how a state— actually
the function representing the state— is
programmed. It illustrates four kinds of
transitions. The first is an attempt to
make a transition to a new state based
on the type of the current word; the
second is an attempt to make a transi-
tion by calling a subnetwork; the third
is a Jump— if the special conditions are
met, make the transition without try-
ing to match a word type or a subnet-
work; and the fourth is a Send—
success is reported. The actual coding
will vary from this example, but the
basic steps remain the same: If the
word or phrase is of the requisite type,
check the special conditions; if they are
met. perform the special actions to
save information and call the function
representing the next state.
Much of the information saved
comes from the dictionary. This infor-
mation is kept in a large packet passed
from state to state during the recogni-
tion process. When a network is called
to recognize a phrase, an empty packet
is created to hold the expected infor-
mation. If the phrase is recognized, the
packet is filled in and passed back to
the calling state where it is appended
to the calling state's packet. As a
sentence is processed, the basic packet
is filled in with pieces attached to it
representing phrases recognized by
the various subnetworks.
If success is reported from a call to
a network, such as the NP network, the
current position in the sentence is also
returned so processing can continue
following the matched phrase. If failure
is reported, the position returned by
the network is ignored.
134 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 135
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
Comparisons can be
difficult for Higgins
because they often
imply so much.
"Bordeaux" is the name of a place
and is therefore a noun, but it can also
be an adjective, as in "the Bordeaux
wine." A word may also have one or
more features depending on its type,
and it may have more than one value
for a single feature. For example.
Noun. Number of "sheep" is both
singular and plural. A noun's case
feature is most often both subjective
and objective.
When Higgins reads the definition
of a word from its dictionary, it builds
a packet similar to the sentence, noun
phrase, and other packets. The type
of the packet is the type of the word.
Unfortunately, some words are of
more than one type; that is. they are
used in more than one way. For ex-
ample, "gun" is both a verb (gun the
engine) and a noun (shoot the gun).
The special types of words (relatives,
binders, etc.) all make up a relatively
small group. English is built mostly of
nouns and adjectives with a lot of
verbs added for good measure.
The words that are subclassified—
the verbs, nouns, etc.— have several
feature values within a subclassification.
For example, "see" is both an infinitive
form and a present form. These multi-
ple feature values are critical to Hig-
gins's operation. It is often important
for a verb to have all of its relevant
feature values defined in Higgins's dic-
tionary in order to process a sentence
properly. This is especially true of the
"to be" type verbs.
Adding feature values to words may
blur the distinctions between gram-
matical and ungrammatical sentences.
For example, if you want to ignore the
difference between nouns and proper
nouns, you might type each noun as
both. Comparisons are a little difficult
for Higgins because a sentence con-
taining comparisons often implies so
much. To simplify this process, words
such as "greater" and "than" are
typed as verbs (in addition to their
other types). Their verb features are
present, past, and modal, and the
phrase "is greater than" is recognized
as a sequence of verbs.
The features in the packet are filled
in from the dictionary entry. The
allowable values for each feature are
also specified in figure 1 ; the default
value, if there is one, is shown in
italics.
The Analysis of a Sentence
Recognition of a sentence— including
filling the packets with information
from the sentence— makes under-
standing possible. The packet struc-
ture created during sentence analysis
is a tree. As the sentence is scanned
via successful transitions through the
networks, packets are added to the
structure. When finished, the com-
pleted structure parallels the suc-
cessful path through the network. In
keeping with the tree structure, lets
call a packet a node.
The primary node is the sentence
node. It has places for recording voice
and mood information and places for
pointers to other nodes. The other
nodes describe the sentence's subject
(there is always a subject, although it
may be implied), verb (there is always
a verb), and any of several other di-
mensions. The objects, if they exist,
specify what is to be acted upon. The
auxiliaries, if there are any. are help-
ing verbs, such as "will have been" in
the sentence "By tomorrow, the cat
will have been drinking from the cup."
The main verb is "drinking." Modifiers
such as "from the cup" are attached
to the sentence node when they
modify the sentence. If they modify
a part of the sentence, they are at-
tached to the node representing that
part of the sentence.
The parts of a sentence are repre-
sented by nodes. The subject and ob-
jects are noun-phrase nodes; the verb
is a verb-phrase node; and the
modifiers are prepositional-phrase
nodes. There is one exception. In the
place of a noun- or prepositional-
phrase node, you may substitute a
sentence node. For example, in "The
cat who drank the wine went to
sleep." "who drank the wine" qualifies
the subject of the sentence and has
the form of a sentence (a subject,
"who": a verb, "drank"; and an object,
"the wine").
When you design a program to use
the information Higgins provides,
remember the model of the sentence:
subject, verb, and possible objects. In
the sentence "How much does a bot-
tle of Cabernet Sauvignon cost?" ac-
cording to Higgins the subject is "how
much," the verb is "does." and the ob-
jects are "a bottle of Cabernet
Sauvignon" and "cost." If you were
translating this into a database query,
it might come out: SELECT COST
FROM WINELIST WHERE NAME =
"Cabernet Sauvignon." In making this
translation, you assume a lot about
what the user might be asking, the
possible range of queries, and the
possible range of subject matter. You
can make these kinds of simplifying
assumptions because anything out-
side this range of information
wouldn't be understood anyway— it
wouldn't be in the database
Higgins is a powerful tool for an ap-
plication program in understanding
the language used in framing
sentences. Once the purpose of the
program is clearly understood, you
can put a variety of sentences through
your version of Higgins to see how it
stores them in its packets. When you
understand this, you can write the
part of the program that does the real
work— perhaps with a version of Hig-
gins at the beginning. Listing 1 shows
an example sentence analyzed by a
version of Higgins written in C.
Limitations and Peculiarities
When placing information in the
packet, Higgins can make mistakes.
The fault is not entirely Higgins's,
though, because English is an am-
biguous language. Its ambiguity is
both its power and its failing. A
sentence often quoted by gram-
marians is "Time flies like an arrow."
If "time" is a noun (a thing), then
"flies" must be a verb, and the
[continued)
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ENGLISH RECOGNITION
sentence is modified by the preposi-
tional phrase "like an arrow." If "time"
is a verb, however, then the sentence
is a command (an imperative
sentence). The subject is an implied
"you," and "like an arrow" describes
how to time the flies (nouns, things).
Whether this makes any sense is
unimportant to Higgins. The program
doesn't understand what the words
mean, just how they fit together in
English.
When we read or hear English, we
process the words syntactically and
semantically— by form and by mean-
ing—at the same time so the ambigu-
ity usually is not recognized. There-
fore, the internal order Higgins uses
Listing 1: The structure of packets built during sentence analysis. This example
was created by an implementation of Higgins written in C. The exact form of the
structure depends on the form of the sentence. See table 1 for the meanings
associated with the numbers shown.
What does the wine cost?
Sentence: mood = 2, voice = 1
S.Subject:
Noun phrase: number = 2, person = 8, case = 6, question = 6
NP Determiner:
Pronoun: "what" number™ 2, person = 8, case = 6, question = 6
NPHead:
Pronoun: "what" number = 2, person = 8, case = 6, question = 6
S.Direct object:
Noun phrase: number = 6, person = 8, case = 6, question = 4
NPHead:
Noun: "cost" number = 6, case = 6
S.lndirect object:
Noun phrase: number = 2. person = 8, case = 6, question = 4
NPDeterminer:
Determiner: 'the" number = 6, question = 4
NPHead:
Noun: "wine" number = 2 case = 6
S.Main verb:
Verb phrase: form = 40, transitivity = e, type = a
VPVerbs:
Verb: "does" form = 40, transitivity = e, type = a
Table 1: The various numbers are hexadecimal representations of the binary
values in that feature. The meaning of each bit is determined from the constant
definitions in Higgins's implementation. For example, case=6 means both bit 1
and bit 2 are set on: this word can be either subjective or objective in its present
form.
mood = 2
interrogative
voice = 1
active
number = 2
singular
= 6
singular or plural
person = 8
third
case = 6
subjective or objective
question = 4
no
= 6
yes or no
form = 40
present tense
transitivity = e
intransitive, transitive, or bitransitive
type = a
do and modal
in processing sentences may be of
particular interest. To see how Higgins
does it, try a few potentially am-
biguous sentences. If Higgins doesn't
process them the way you want it to,
you may have to tinker with the code
or perhaps simply limit the meanings
of the words in the dictionary.
Some features of English are dif-
ficult to analyze without also incor-
porating a great deal of knowledge
about sentence meaning and context
into the program. Surprisingly simple
English can confuse poor Higgins.
One feature that Higgins knows very
little about is the simple conjunction,
such as "and" or "or." Higgins can
handle noun and verb phrases with
embedded conjunctions, but that's all.
The problem occurs when parts of the
sentences are only implied, not
specified. You and I have no problem
with these because we understand
the meaning of the sentence and fill
in the missing phrases easily. Higgins
doesn't understand meanings and
can't fill in anything. The following
sentences were taken from Terry
Winograd's book Language As a
Cognitive Process (Addison-Wesley 1981):
1. Paul and loy came to dinner.
2. They brought some yellow and
purple flowers.
3. They gave loan a kiss and Eileen
a hug.
4. We opened and drank some wine
and ate falafel.
5. Paul liked to play tunes on the
guitar, and Joy on the mandolin.
6. He played and she sang every old
tune in the book.
The first sentence contains a simple
conjunction between noun phrases-
no problem for Higgins. The second
sentence has a conjunction of adjec-
tives; Higgins doesn't know how to
analyze these, but it can be modified
to do so. In the third sentence, "they
gave" is understood to follow "and"
("They gave Joan a kiss and they gave
Eileen a hug."). In the fourth sentence,
"we" is understood to follow the
"and." In the fifth sentence, "liked to
play tunes" is understood to follow
"Joy." Finally, in the sixth sentence,
[continued)
138 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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Cross Reference Utility for the Macro Assembler
♦ Creates a cross-reference listing of the definitions and
locations of all symbols used in an assembly language
program.
Microsoft is a registered trademark and The High
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Corporation. IBM is a registered trademark of
International Business Machines. UNIX is a trademark
of Bell Laboratories.
ENGLISH RECOGNITION
"every old tune in the book" is under-
stood to follow "played." Higgins
won't be able to do much with these
kinds of sentences.
You can increase Higgins's abilities
to analyze these sentences, but it is
difficult to do things in a general way.
You will encounter a host of details
and special cases, but with some per-
sistence you can successfully add a lot
to your program's abilities.
Comparisons are also often difficult
to analyze. The problem is much the
same as that of the conjunctions-
implied meanings and implied con-
structs. The comparisons imple-
mented in Higgins depend on giving
words such as "greater" and "than"
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modal features so that "is greater
than" is analyzed as a verb phrase.
Higgins understands "Find the boxes
that have width greater than height,"
if you define "greater" as having a "to
be" verb form. However, Higgins won't
analyze "Find the boxes that have
width greater than height and weigh
more than 20 pounds" because of the
implied construction following the
"and." If you want to analyze these
kinds of sentences, you'll have to add
to Higgins's abilities.
A final sentence form that Higgins
doesn't analyze is the compound
sentence: "The cat drank the wine,
and he had a hangover."
Conclusion
Higgins is based on pattern matching.
This pattern matching uses a par-
ticular form of state network called
ATN. The network is augmented by
adding packet structures that are car-
ried from state to state in the network.
Network transitions from state to state
are made by recursively calling the
next state rather than by simply jump-
ing to it. The call and return allow a
simplicity of control at the program-
ming level by placing the burden on
the run-time system to keep track of
local variables.
Higgins's design is open and simple
enough to allow modification. You can
add to its abilities to analyze English
and keep more information in the
packet structures. You can also modify
the design to allow ungrammatical
sentences and to merge various word
types, such as nouns and proper
nouns. In addition, you may assign
words in the dictionary types and
features in such a way that they pass
tests they otherwise would not.
Higgins can be a powerful tool for
understanding and using English as a
part of an application program's oper-
ating ability. Remember, Higgins
doesn't do anything, it just explains the
sentence to you. And recognition is
the first step toward understanding.
\Editor's note: The networks described in the
text box are documentation for Higgins. You
can get a complete set bu sending the author
a large, self-addressed stamped {two stamps)
envelope.] ■
140 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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142 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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SCIENTIFIC SOFTWARE
On Line Databases
It is often difficult to find the "right"
software by means of a database
search because of the general lack of
precision of the search process. Either
the number of "hits" will be large and
most citations will prove to be of mar-
ginal value, or the number of hits will
be small because the search can find
few records in the database that match
the search profile entered. One reason
you may end with a large number of
hits is that vendors want you to see
their entries even if they aren't of direct
value to you. Therefore, the product
description they put in the database is
often overly generalized. Another
reason this happens is because data-
base suppliers want to have as many
entries as possible, so they pay little
attention to the package's quality or
even its existence (apart from an
announcement).
Despite these drawbacks. 1 recom-
mend the following three databases
that may be of help to you in your
search for scientific software. These are
available through the Knowledge Index
service of Dialog Information Services,
3460 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA
94304. There are also agents in other
countries around the world. The ser-
vice rates for these databases (at the
time of this writing) are $3 5 initial fee
for manuals and two hours of on-line
use, and S24 per hour of on-line use
thereafter. (Note that there are other
database services that may provide
these files.)
• Menu— International Software Data-
base (produced by Imprint Software
Ltd.)
• Microcomputer Index— (produced by
Microcomputer Information Services,
1982)
• Mathfile— (produced by the
American Mathematical Society). The
first two of these files focus on mini-
and microcomputer software offerings,
while Mathfile contains abstracts to the
mathematical, statistical, and comput-
ing literature, including application
areas, and covers approximately 1600
journals.
Search Aids
Publications
The following is a list of periodicals,
catalogs, and reports that often discuss
scientific software packages. Some of
these sources are devoted to particular
subject areas. This is not a complete
list: there are other sources that offer
reviews of interesting software. To ob-
tain more information on these pub-
lications, contact the addresses
provided.
• ACM Transactions on Mathematical Soft-
ware. Although this periodical is main-
ly devoted to mainframes, some of the
material may be suitable to microcom-
puters. Contact the Association for
Computing Machinery, 1133 Avenue of
the Americas. New York, NY 10036.
*hdvances in Engineering Software. Some
articles include program code. Micro-
computers are increasingly being fea-
tured in this magazine. Contact CML
Publications, 125 High St., Southamp-
ton SOI OAA. England.
• American Statistician. This magazine in-
cludes announcements of statistical
software. It also has a regular statistical
software review section. The emphasis
is on microcomputer software. Contact
the American Statistical Association.
806 15th St. NW, Washington. DC
20005.
• AMSTAT News. This magazine is main-
ly of value for its advertisements, which
are directed at professional statisti-
cians. It often lists workshops and
meetings where software is to be dis-
cussed Contact the American Statisti-
cal Association. 806 15th St. NW,
Washington, DC 20005.
• BYTE: The Small Systems \oumal. This
magazine provides monthly software
reviews. Contact BYTE. 70 Main St..
Peterborough. NH 03458.
• The College Mathematics \ournal. This
journal has a regular software review
column. Contact the Mathematical
Association of America, 1 529 18th St.
NW, Washington. DC 20036.
• Computer Physics Communications. In-
cludes a section on software but main-
ly is of use to mainframe users. Con-
tact North-Holland Publishing Com-
pany, Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam,
Netherlands.
• Computers & Chemistry. Includes a reg-
ular section on software and the Quan-
tum Chemistry Program Exchange.
Contact Pergamon Press Inc.. Maxwell
House, Fairview Park. Elmsford, NY
10523.
• Computers & Geosciences. Some pro-
grams included, many of which are de-
signed for, or could be adapted to,
microcomputers. Contact Pergamon
Press Inc.. Maxwell House, Fairview
Park, Elmsford, NY 10523.
• Computers & Structures. Discusses struc-
tural engineering methods. A software
survey section is being introduced.
Contact Pergamon Press Inc., Maxwell
House, Fairview Park. Elmsford. NY
10523.
• Computers in Mechanical Engineering. The
lanuary 1985 issue is devoted to micro-
computer software for analysis and
design. Other issues have included sim-
ilar material. Contact the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers, 345
East 47th St., New York. NY 10017.
• Econometrica. Occasional discussion of
microcomputer software. Contact Econ-
ometric Society, c/o Department of
Economics, Northwestern University,
Evanston. IL 60201.
• "Guide to Available Mathematical
Software," National Bureau of Standards
Report NBSIR 84-2824 (1984). Boisvert,
R. F, S. E. Howe, and D. K. Kahaner.
Contact National Technical Information
Service. U.S. Department of Commerce,
5285 Port Royal Rd„ Springfield. VA
22161.
• IEEE Micro. Includes announcements
of microcomputer software. Contact
IEEE Micro. 10662 Los Vasqueros Circle,
Long Beach. CA 90720.
• \ournal of Computational Chemistry. Sur-
prisingly little discussion of software.
Contact Wi ley/I nterscience Scientific
lournals, 605 Third Ave., New York, NY
10158.
146 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 147
SCIENTIFIC SOFTWARE
• \ournal of Computational Physics. Covers
only a few software packages and has
a mainframe bias. Contact Academic
Press Inc., 1 1 1 Fifth Ave.. New York, NY
10003.
• Journal of Forecasting. Occasional
discussion of software, including that
for microcomputers. Contact John
Wiley and Sons, 605 Third Ave., New
York, NY 10158.
• journal of Microcomputer Applications. In-
teresting material with some scientific
applications, e.g., medicine and astron-
omy, but little direct treatment of soft-
ware. Contact Academic Press Inc., 1 1 1
Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10003.
• Physics Education. Includes software
reviews, mainly for microcomputer pro-
grams. Contact the Institute of Physics.
Techno House. Redcliffe Way, Bristol
BS1 6NX, England.
• Science and Engineering ( 1 984 software
catalog). Short listings on over 4300
programs, mostly for microcomputers,
indexed by subject and applications.
Contact Elsevier Science Publishing
Company, 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New
York, NY 10017.
• "Scientific Word Processing," SIAM
News. Wong, P. K. November 1984, page
8. A review of several packages from
a mathematician's perspective in the
newspaper of the Society for Industrial
and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).
Related articles frequently appear.
Contact SIAM, 1405 Architects
Building, 117 South 17th St.,
Philadelphia, PA 19103.
• Simulation. Technical journal of the
Society for Computer Simulation.
Simulation Councils Inc.. POB 228, La
Jolla, CA 92038. Periodically includes
a software catalog that has a specific
section for microcomputers.
• 1984 Guidebook to Statistical Analysis and
Graphics Software for Microcomputers. Goss,
T. I. One of the more useful directories
in the statistics subject area. Available
from Goss, Gilroy and Associates, 124
O'Connor St.. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
KIP 5M9.
mentation of work in a number of
fields, such as a word-processing sys-
tem for mathematical or scientific
systems or a statistical package.
Alternatively, the package may have
been designed primarily to educate
users in a certain subject area rather
than to provide serious computa-
tional power to practitioners. An ex-
ample of this kind of program is one
that illustrates how simultaneous
linear equations are solved or one
that prepares test questions in a
specific discipline from a master set.
Style
The way a software producer presents
and packages his creation is the fac-
tor that most often causes buyers to
rave or curse about software. If several
software packages can perform the
same function, style may become the
hinge of your buying decision.
To determine if a program's style
suits you, you should consider three
things— the way in which the program
must be used, the level of satisfaction
or frustration you experience while
using it, and the suitability (or fit to
application) of the program's packag-
ing and documentation.
Although it is relatively easy to list
the features of a software product,
even extensive reviews may fail to
capture the style of the product. The
expanding availability of demonstra-
tion disks (especially those that allow
you to try all of a program's functions)
is to be welcomed as an aid to soft-
ware selection.
The three subdivisions of software
I described earlier— software de-
signed to perform certain tasks, to be
used as a tool, or to be used as a
teaching aid— can also be applied to
the discussion of style.
Early scientific software took the
form of single programs or subrou-
tines (tasks) (for example, the col-
lected algorithms of the Association
for Computing Machinery). Libraries
of subroutines are still a common and
useful form of software packaging.
However, unless source code is avail-
able, this form of packaging requires
that you write driver programs and
{continued)
FoxBASE.
The Multi-user DBMS Everyone
Can Get Their Hands On.
FoxBASE" is the only multi-user relational
DBMS that's source compatible (including
full macro usage) with dBASE II® Existing
dBASE II databases can be used unchanged.
What's more, because it's written in C,
FoxBASE is extremely portable. Applications
need not be changed when porting from one
machine or operating system to another.
FoxBASE features full file and record locking
capabilities, maintenance of a B+ Tree index
structure, and a two billion record file
capacity. FoxBASE uses termcap so it can
run on most terminals.
Multi-user Versions:
Xenix® $995. MultiLink" $995.
IBM-PC Net" $995.
Single-user Versions:
MS/PC-DOS'" $395: AOSIVS $995.
Don't be outfoxed by the others. Call or
write Fox Software today.
FOX SOFTWARE, INC.
27475 Holiday Lane, Perrysburg. OH 43551
419-874-0162
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
147
SCIENTIFIC SOFTWARE
Software Tools
for Scientific Computations
There are a number of software prod-
ucts that attempt to cover most aspects
of scientific computation. Others pro-
vide a toolbox for a given area of ap-
plication, lack Dongarra looked at
some of these and provided much of
the information below.
General Scientific Software
Collections
• math/library
$440; $320 for universities
This selection, which is from the well-
known 1MSL subroutine library, is for
use on an IBM PC or PC XT with Micro-
soft FORTRAN 3.2 under MS-DOS 2.0.
It contains 540 mathematical subrou-
tines to solve for differential equations
and integration, eigensystem analysis,
error functions, gamma functions, in-
terpolation, approximation, smoothing,
linear algebraic equations, nonlinear
equations, optimization, and vector/
matrix arithmetic and sorting. Both
single- and double-precision versions
of the routines are available. Contact
IMSL Inc., 7500 Bellaire Blvd., NBC
Building, Houston, TX 77036-5085.
• microSUB:MATH $2 50
This program consists of a set of FOR-
TRAN subroutines in relocatable-
object form. The subroutines cover
special math functions, interpolation,
integration, matrix/linear systems,
polynomials/nonlinear systems, and dif-
ferential equations. Contact Foehn
Consulting. POB 5123, Klamath Falls,
OR 97601.
• NAG FORTRAN PC50 Library
$345; 20 percent off for universities
This package consists of 50 routines
from the NAG FORTRAN library. It can
be run on the IBM PC with Microsoft
FORTRAN 3.13 under MS-DOS 1.0 (or
later) and on the IBM PC XT with Mi-
crosoft FORTRAN 3.2 under MS-DOS
2.0. The routines cover a wide range
of subjects in numerical and statistical
computing, including root finding.
Fourier transforms, quadrature, ordi-
nary differential equations, optimiza-
tion, linear algebra, basic statistics, ran-
dom numbers, linear programming,
and special functions. Contact
Numerical Algorithms Group Inc.. 101 1
31st St., Suite 100, Downers Grove. IL
60515.
• The Scientific Desk
One-time fee of $480; maintenance fee
$84 per year
This library of subroutines can be
called by a user and embedded in his
or her program. The package has a set
of applications program menus called
Problem Solving Environments (PSEs).
The PSEs provide the user with a set
of commands that are familiar to the
subarea and can be used without pro-
gramming. They provide programs in
the following areas: simultaneous
linear-equation solving, vector/matrix
arithmetic, inversion, matrix-condition
estimation, and statistical inference and
estimation. They can handle real ma-
trices stored in two-dimensional form,
calculate the roots of polynomials,
eigenvalues, and eigenvectors for real
square matrices. Contact C Abaci Inc..
208 St. Mary's St.. Raleigh, NC 27605.
Software for Linear Algebra
• LEQB05 $50
This small linear-algebra algorithm
package (of BASIC source code) con-
sists of a number of subroutines and
three driver programs that, on most
computer systems, can be loaded si-
multaneously. The programs solve the
following types of equations: linear
least-squares problems, linear equa-
tions problems, matrix inverse. Moore-
Penrose generalized matrix inverse,
matrix eigenvalue problems for sym-
metric matrices, and nonlinear least-
squares problems. Contact C. Abaci
Inc.. 208 St. Mary's St., Raleigh. NC
27605.
• UNPACK $75
This collection of FORTRAN subrou-
tines analyzes and solves linear equa-
tions and linear least-squares prob-
lems. The package solves linear sys-
tems whose matrices are general.
banded, symmetric indefinite, sym-
metric positive definite, triangular, and
tridiagonal square. The routines are
available in single-precision, double-
precision, complex, and double-
precision complex. Contact IMSL Inc..
7500 Bellaire Blvd., NBC Building.
Houston, TX 77036-5085.
•PC-MATLAB $695
This highly optimized second-genera-
tion MATLAB for the IBM PC has been
completely rewritten in the C language.
New features of the program include
graphics, user-defined functions. IEEE
arithmetic, test data types, fast-
compiled FOR and WHILE loops, and
many new analytical commands. The
program is available from The Math
Works Inc.. 124 Foxwood Rd., Portola
Valley, CA 9402 5.
Software for Nonlinear
Equations
• SEQS (The Simultaneous
Equation Solver) $100
This program handles up to 20 equa-
tions with 20 variables: it is made for
the Apple 11+ and lie. Contact CET
Research Group Ltd.. POB 2029. Nor-
man, OK 73069.
• TKISolver $299
This program also solves equations,
but it provides a worksheet-like user in-
terface. For more information, see
TKISolver" by Alan R. Miller.
December 1984 BYTE, page 263. Con-
tact Software Arts Inc., 27 Mica Lane,
Wellesley MA 02181.
Software for Mathematical
Programming
•LIPS $80
• LPSUBS $99
These two products consists of FOR-
TRAN subprograms for Large-Integer
Programming (LIPS) and Linear Pro-
gramming (LPSUBS) problems on the
IBM PC. It is available from Software
Designs 2000. POB 13238, Albuquer-
que, NM 87192.
148 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
o&nl Ko.
dOvd® JFoWKnl
GQQnafl®
Intelligent Computer Designs XL series S-100 products offer the latest in state-of-the-art designs.
Our slave products, the 8-bit XL-DLZ80 and the 16-bit XL-DL88, feature two slaves on one card, enabling system
integrators double the number of users previously possible.
The XL-M180, a high-performance system master for single or multi-user applications, complete with hard disk,
streaming tape and floppy capabilities introduces something new. An onboard Local Area Network with up to 5Mbps
transfer speed. With it, interfacing other XL-M180's or even IBM-PC's is a snap!
If you think ICD has solutions for your systems' needs, write or give us a call.
XL-DL88
XL-M180
XL-DLZ80
Q>
2 completely independent slaves
Bmhz 70108 processor
1 28k to 51 2k memory expansion
4 serial communication channels
DMA transfers to/from system
master
CP/M 86, MS-DOS, PC-DOS.
TurboDOS compatible
High performance
HD64180 uPD
51 2k memory with burst refresh
5Mbps local area network
4 bi-directional parallel ports
2 serial ports
1 clocked serial port
Pipelined architecture
Z SYSTEMS O/S available
Hard disk controller/Streaming
tape option
All digital floppy disk controller
Extended instruction set
Programmable instruction set
20 level interrupt structure
Over 80 I/O ports
Software programmable baud rates
2 Z80H 8mhz processors
V4 megabyte memory
2 190k local drives
4 serial ports
Draws only 700 millilamps
No wait states
CP/M. MP/M, TurboDOS
compatible
All ICD products have a one-year part/ labor warranty.
'^WC*
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n 9uiry
CA
XL-SERIES is a trademark ol Intelligent Computer Design;
CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research Corp
PC-OOS is a trademark of IBM Corp
MS-DOS is a trademark of Microsoft Corp
Turbo-DOS is a trademark of Software 2000, inc
Z SYSTEMS is a trademark of Micromm Inc
'as
for
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1
SCIENTIFIC SOFTWARE
For your own
protection, you should
be aware of the
quality of a scientific
program before
you buy it.
learn how to link to the compiled sub-
routines.
More recently, the microcomputer
has come to be viewed as a worksta-
tion, which in turn has led to the de-
velopment of more scientific software
in the form of command- or menu-
driven packages (tools) that do not re-
quire that you program them. As the
command set becomes richer, you are
given more control over data manipu-
lation, and you can group commands
into procedures that are interpreted,
compiled, or otherwise processed for
execution. The end product is a new
programming language in all but
name.
Another approach some software
developers take is to provide a pro-
totype program that is designed to be
easily modified by the user (the
Microcomputer Software
for Econometric Modeling
and Forecasting
This list illustrates the variety of soft-
ware that may be available for a given
subject area
• ESP (The Econometric
Software Package) $795
This package uses menus, function
keys, and commands to build a special-
ized language for estimation, forecast-
ing, simulation, and analysis. Contact
Alpha Software Corporation. 30 B St.,
Burlington. MA 01803
• Horizon/370 Software for the AT/370
One-time fee of $50,000: maintenance
fee is $5000 per year
This forecasting workstation incor-
porates econometric forecasting and
time-series techniques. Contact Chase
Decision Systems. 1000 Massachusetts
Ave.. Cambridge. MA 02138.
• INSTAT-QF $19.95
The QF stands for "quick forecaster."
This program is for the IBM PC or PC
XT. It uses AR1MA modeling and is
menu-driven. The price of both pro-
grams is more than reasonable. Con-
tact Statistical Consulting Services, 517
East Lodge Dr.. Tempe. AZ 85283.
• MICROB) $295
This ARIMA system is based on the
Box-Jenkins philosophy It is for the
Apple II or IBM PC. Contact Stratix.
POB 1014, Woodinville. WA 98072-
1014.
• Nuametrics $195
This econometrics package uses single-
and multiple-regression techniques for
statistical analysis and forecasting. Con-
tact Stratix, POB 1014, Woodinville, WA
98072-1014.
• RATS (Regression Analysis
of Time Series) $250
This is a comprehensive command-
driven system for knowledgeable users
of the IBM PC. The summary listing of
commands is 1 2 pages long, so it's not
a product you can just switch on and
use. A hard disk is not mandatory, but
it helps. The program is available from
VAR Econometrics. 134 Prospect Ave.
S, Minneapolis, MN 55419
• XTRAPOLATOR $195
This is an automatic forecasting system.
Contact Stratix. POB 1014, Woodinville,
WA 98072-1014.
teaching aid approach). You can adapt
it to particular tasks or personal pref-
erences. This approach is not widely
used commercially, partly because
there are difficulties in protecting the
authorship of programs.
Quality
The degree to which software per-
forms as claimed is far too often taken
for granted.
In scientific computations, subtle in-
teractions between the problem pre-
sented and the floating-point arith-
metic used to solve the problem may
dramatically alter the results a pro-
gram obtains. Thus, scientific software
must operate correctly on the tasks it
shares with such programs as word
processors or database managers.
However, it must also be produced in
such a way that the approximations
and iterative processes it uses give
results that well-informed users con-
sider reasonable. Alternatively, diag-
nostic information that allows trouble-
some situations to be understood and
corrected in an appropriate way must
be output.
For your protection, you should be
aware of a program's quality before
you buy it. This means you should pay
attention to reviews by competent
professionals in the field, the docu-
mentation of authorship, methods of
program development, the history of
the software, and the reputation of
the software producer and vendor.
Conclusion
The text boxes "Software Tools for
Scientific Computations" on page 148
and "Microcomputer Software for
Econometric Modeling and Forecast-
ing" at left list a number of scientific
software packages. However, with the
development of new products and the
improvement of existing ones, this in-
formation will soon be dated. In order
to obtain more up-to-date informa-
tion, you should also consider the
following sources: reviews in scientific
journals, reviews in computer journals
and magazines, publications
dedicated to scientific software and its
uses, and public-access software
databases. ■
150 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
There is
KPP^IA#»*I *%lr
W^^ |\003K
Diskettes
till inch diskettes
*LS* A 3£^ « ^
rausn
With all the care and precision that goes into every
Kodak diskette, it's only natural that you'd expect
extraordinary performance.
And that's exactly what you'll get.
You see, Kodak diskettes are made for any appli-
cation where trouble-free performance is essential
and data protection is critical.
For openers, every Kodak diskette has the stam-
ina to sustain signal strength far above industry
performance standards, even after millions
of read-write passes.
Every Kodak diskette is individually
tested for read-write performance
over every sector, every track.
And it's not until those tests and
many others are completed that
> Eastman Kodak Company, 1985
Kodak diskettes are certified error-free.
Naturally, every Kodak diskette is backed by our Per-
formance Guarantee, which promises a free replace-
ment in the unlikely event that a Kodak diskette is
defective. No other warranties are expressed or implied.
You'll find Kodak diskettes at computer stores, office
supply dealers, and other retail oudets. In standard-
density 8- and 5V4-inch formats,
plus high-density S^-inch diskettes,
and 3Vi-inch micro diskettes.
The Kodak diskettes. Performance
without the fine print.
KODAK.
The name says it all.
milium
COMPAQ could have stopped here 'smmws.
COMPAQ* is a registered trademark, COMPAQ PORTABLE 286™ and COMPAQ DESKPRO 286'" are trademarks of COMPAQ Computer Corporation. IBM* is a registered trademark; IBM Personal Computer AT™ is a trademark of
International Business Machines Corporation.© 1985 COMPAQ Computer Corporation
152 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
...but we didn't.
Presenting the COMPAQ DESKPRO 286?
More features, more speed. . .more power.
Most people think the IBM* Per-
sonal Computer-AT™ holds the
records for speed, memory, and
storage. But COMPAQ" has a per-
sonal computer that pushes the
technology much further.
A faster computer
Most computer companies would
have been satisfied with a com-
puter that ran programs as fast as
the IBM PC-AT. But not COMPAQ.
The COMPAQ DESKPRO 286
runs all the popular programs
30% faster.
Work alone or network
Most would have been content with
3 Megabytes of memory, the IBM
PC-AT's maximum. But again,
not COMPAQ. The COMPAQ
DESKPRO 286 can expand to 8.2
Megabytes.
And most would have been com-
fortable with 40 Megabytes of stor-
age, the IBM PC-AT's maximum.
But we designed the COMPAQ
DESKPRO 286 to expand up to
70 Megabytes so it can become
a faster, more powerful network
file server.
Like the IBM PC-AT, COMPAQ
offers 360-K byte and high -capacity
1.2-Megabyte diskette drives. But
we didn't stop there. We offer you
more. Like the internal fixed disk
drive back-up system pioneered by
COMPAQ, to protect all the data on
your 20-, 30-, or 70-Megabyte fixed
disk drive system. There's room
to accommodate up to four storage
devices.
No compromises
The COMPAQ DESKPRO 286
offers a monitor that displays
both high-resolution text and graph-
ics. To get the same feature with
the IBM PC-AT, you'd have to pay
considerably more.
In short, with the COMPAQ
DESKPRO 286, you don't get com-
promises. Just a more powerful,
more advanced, more com-
plete personal computer
for anyone who demands
the utmost in performance.
And if you need all this
power to go, we also offer
it in a package half the size
of an IBM PC-AT, complete
with a handle. It's called the
COMPAQ PORTABLE 286™
Portable or desktop,
COMPAQ offers comput-
ers without equal. Because
we design them without
compromise.
For a free brochure or
the location of your near-
est Authorized COMPAQ
Computer Dealer, call toll-
free 1-800-231-0900 and
ask for operator 7.
comma
It simply works better.
©Gfflffim
WOULD YOU BUY
A PACEMAKER
FROM MATTEL?
IBMI PC-based LOGIC LINE-1 ™ artificial intelligence software is
so advanced, that competitive products are toys by comparison.
There aren't very many who'd stake their
lives on a toy-store pacemaker. Luckily, we
won't have to worry about their rancid cells
polluting mankind's gene pool very long any-
how. Such brain-damaged geeks tend to die
young.
If you've recently spent money on artificial
intelligence software, you might be wishing a
few programmers had croaked before writing
that blithering swill they named AI and pal-
med off onto you. What they call an
"inference engine" is nothing more than an
IF-THEN decision tree that can't even do a
very good job of arithmetic*
We're Clarity Software, and we're introduc-
ing a product that can take a massive amount
of text from any machine-readable source, and
mathematically distill thought processes for
query and analysis. This process, as dis-
tinguished from expert systems, is referred to
as natural-language intelligence.
In this ad, we're going to explain to you
why you'd be crazy not to have our package in
your portfolio of data-manipulation assets.
DERIVE THE DNA/RNA OF ANY
WRITER'S THOUGHT PROCESSES.
LOGIC LINE-1 was the result of the inter-
action between a couple of cyberneticists and
a physicist, with combined experience in
high-performance learning and pattern-recog-
nition programming. The physicist was
responsible for one of the first DNA/RNA-
tracking systems (the RNA-of-thought asser-
tion is more than just an advertising creation).
We are not your ordinary bunch of yahoos.
Imagine having the collected thoughts of
Voltaire online. If you were interested in view-
ing Voltaire's thoughts on "job security;' you
would enter that term in the search menu.
Now you're thinking: "Nuts! These yahoos
are trying to sell me something my sup-
posedly toy text editor can do with a search
command. Right?"
Wrong, pussycat. Your inference process
was a little quick on the trigger. Never, in any
of Voltaire's writing, was there ever the phrase
"job security!'
"Ok!' you reply. "You have a dictionary of
synonyms, eh?" Wrong again. LOGIC
LINE- 1 has no dictionary. Interesting?
Essentially, LOGIC LINE- 1 uses a series of
mathematical transformations on text, the out-
put of which is cataloged in a database analo-
gous to a biological DNA/RNA imprint of
that text.
There are approximately one dozen param-
eters that make up a thought's DNA/RNA.
Some transformations fingerprint syntax pat-
terns; some look at subject/predicate rela-
tionships via a small dictionary of several
dozen noise words.
After setting up the above Voltaire "job
security" query. LOGIC LINE-1 will present
you with high-possibility "hits!' You will type
" Y" when they are relevant, and "S" for skip,
when they are not.
The first several "hits" might be rejected,
since the term "job security" will not be
found. Once you get an acceptable entry,
however, and lock onto an acceptable RNA-of-
thought pattern, the accuracy of LOGIC
LINE-1 will be staggering. Or we'll refund
your money. Simple enough?
"I'M NOT INTO VOLTAIRE',' YOU SAY.
"WHY DO I NEED LOGIC LINE-1?"
How would you like to be able to turn any
textbase into an expert system? For example,
most PC users rely upon word processing. The
problem is, we store our correspondence in
files with names like "LT062185" or
"REJECT21" or "RANDOMTH!' As a
result, we reinvent the wheel with each letter
we compose. Why do this?
Using LOGIC LINE-1, you can append all
your written correspondence into one textbase
file. Sure, any word processor could do a
straight search for a term like "quality!' But
none can do this search as fast as LOGIC
LINE-1. And none could turn up the
"quality" references if queried for the term
"workmanship!'
Thus, when writing letters and speeches,
use LOGIC LINE-1 to collect previously
articulated thoughts on any given subject.
Whatever your profession, be it law, medicine,
engineering or information management.
LOGIC LINE-1 is an indispensable tool for
true thought processing.
Now that thousands of textbases are pub-
licly available, LOGIC LINE-1 is the key to
their intelligent use. Once the computer estab-
lishes associative links in a large body of
material, many creative applications are pos-
sible.
TRUE AI! CLONE THE
GREAT MINDS ON YOUR PC.
Did Bacon write Shakespeare? Did Albert
Einstein have anything relevant to say on the
subject of "generation gap?" How many con-
gressmen consistently contradict themselves
in the Congressional Record?
The uses of LOGIC LINE-1 are limited
only by the availability of textbases, and by
your imagination.
Do you dare send a student to college with-
out LOGIC LINE-1 and a PC? Would YOU
care to compete in business with someone
else who has this leading-edge, decision-sup-
port software?
Einstein should write your papers on rela-
tivity. Alfred North Whitehead should write
your papers on philosophy. And Shakespeare
should write your love letters.
1985'S SPECIAL $100 LIMITED-TIME
OFFER WILL BE HISTORY IN 1986.
This is our very first, and only, announce-
ment ad. For the rest of this year, you may
obtain LOGIC LINE- 1 for only $ 1 00 (note, we
didn't try to fool you with a $99.95 price tag;
we do give you, as well as your computer,
some credit for intelligence). As of January 1 ,
1986, LOGIC LINE-1 will retail for $250.
To find out more about LOGIC LINE-1,
call 216/729-1132. You may order by phone
by calling 800/621-5839 (or in Illinois, call
800/972-5855). Return the product for any
reason whatsoever within 30 days for a full
refund. If you are with the US government or
one of the intelligence spook shops, LOGIC
LINE-1 is available to federal/DOD buyers
through IBIS Corporation, 131 Elden Street,
Herndon, VA 22070 (call 800/532-3344 or
703/478-0300).
You COULD spend your next $100 for
other software. You could also ask Weird AI
Yankovic to install that terrific new pacemaker
from your kids' Young Doctor toy kit. Call
today and save more than just money.
CLARITY
SOFTWARE.
A Div. of EXPANSION PGMS INT'L, Inc.
P0 BOX 839 • Chesterland, OH 44026 • USA
(216)729-1132
*The only other package out there worthy of the label "artificial intelligence" is from Teknowledge in Palo Alto, and we don't compete with them. They build "expert systems!' while our emphasis is on "natural
language" systems. We mention them in passing, because they're one of the few "good guys!' Copyright © I985by Clarity Software. LOGIC LINE-1 r " is a trademark of Clarity Software, and requires a I28K IBM PC
with at least one diskette drive and runs under MS/DOS 2.1 and up. IBM" IBM Corp. MATTEL"' Mattel. We hope the swell people at Mattel can take a joke. Advertising & PR byTRBA. 408/258-2708.
Inquiry 60
PROGRAMMING INSIGHT
VIRTUAL FIELDING
IN MICROSOFT BASIC
BY C R. J. CURRIE
A method for handling files
with large record lengths
THIS ARTICLE DESCRIBES a tech-
nique for handling files with record
lengths exceeding a sector on Micro-
soft BASIC (MBASIC) systems. I origi-
nally devised this technique for use
on Tandy's TRS-80 Models I. II. and III,
which have sector lengths and max-
imum record lengths of 2 56 bytes, but
it should be usable with little or no
change on most versions of MBASIC.
Your version of BASIC should be able
to automatically handle variable-
length records of a size less than the
system's maximum.
On the TRS-80s and other systems
with short maximum record lengths,
the usual method for handling long
logical records is called span block-
ing. Fields of the records are written
to disk one by one. Before each is
written, the position of the start of the
field within the physical sector is cal-
culated. If the field will then overflow
the sector, the extent of the overflow
must be determined, the field split
into two, and the remainder written to
the next sector. The calculations are
then repeated for each successive
field. The procedure is slow and cum-
bersome.
In more advanced versions of
MBASIC, including those running on
machines that use
microprocessor or
the Intel 8086
its derivatives,
there is automatic span blocking:
logical record lengths up to 32 K. bytes
can be handled directly. Nevertheless,
you will encounter two serious dif-
ficulties when you manage such long
records. First, the FIELD statement
can only cope with buffers up to ap-
proximately 7K bytes. Second,
MBASIC allows the program to ad-
dress only 64 K bytes of memory (one
segment if the 8086 is used). You
must reserve file buffers before enter-
ing BASIC, and the space they use is
deducted from the memory available
for programs and data. Moreover, the
space you reserve for every buffer
must equal that needed for the largest
file buffer. Thus, if you need to han-
dle a large data file with 20K-byte
records, using two other index files
each with a much smaller record
length, you still must reserve 60K
bytes, which leaves hardly any space
for the program. In some cases, where
the total space used by the file buf-
fers exceeds 64 K bytes, the system
will appear to leave more memory—
but that is deceptive and potentially
disastrous, since some of the file buf-
fers may in fact be mapped onto the
program area. Therefore, the very
large file buffers that the system
seems to permit are virtually useless.
By contrast, the "virtual-fielding"
method, which uses a virtual-memory
technique to control the buffers,
allows you to handle up to 15 files
simultaneously, with combined record
lengths of 300K bytes on the 48K-byte
TRS-80 (or half a megabyte or more
on a 128K-byte machine running
MBASIC-86). The virtual-fielding
method requires no span blocking
and does most of the few needed
calculations only once at the begin-
ning of the program. Moreover, you
can treat each long record (for pur-
poses of data transfer, hash coding,
or tree searching) as a single logical
record. Compared with span blocking,
there is usually a waste of some disk
space, but it should never be as much
as 1 percent within each logical
record. Since span blocking general-
ly wastes a little space in the last sec-
[continued)
C R. I. Currie (Institute of Historical
Research, Senate House, Malet Street, Lon-
don WC1E 7HU, England) has been involved
since 1981 with the use of microcomputers
in the fields of historical research, writing, and
publishing.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
155
VIRTUAL FIELDING
tor of each file, virtually fielded files
will seldom be longer than span-
blocked files.
The technique requires that you
reserve an area of high memory for
the record buffers of long files. The
area must be slightly greater than the
longest record length used in the files
that the program accesses, and you
must protect the area when you enter
BASIC from the operating system. In
MBAS1C, you type MBASIC /M.nnnnn
from the operating-system prompt,
where nnnnn is the address above
which the memory is to be protected.
The same area of memory will be
mapped to handle all the files' logical
records.
You already own a
computer that can talk.
Now let it.
Now you can upgrade almost any personal computer
and make it more powerful than ever, by giving it the power of speech.
The Votrax Personal Speech System is the least
expensive sophisticated voice synthesizer available today.
The PSS's text-to-speech vocabulary is virtually unlimited,
and you can define an exception word table and custom-
ize your translations. So the PSS can say just about anything 1
It's a speech and sound specialist.
The PSS can also mix speech and sound effects or speech
and music. It contains its own speaker a programmable
master clock, 256 programmable frequencies, a program-
mable speech rate for a more natural rhythm, and 16
programmable amplitude levels for incredible control of
word emphasis. You can control the volume. Plus, it
doesn't use any of your computer's valuable memory
It's computer friendly.
The PSS is unbelievably easy to use. ft doesn't need an
interface card for most computers. It comes with standard
serial and parallel ports. Speech, music, and sound effects
are as simple as printing out a document
What do you do with a talking
computer?
There are countless practical applications. Businesses may
want the PSS for spoken transmission of information,
narration of displays, and product demonstrations It
makes verification of data input possible for the blind.
It can be part of a burglar alarm system.
Children can use the PSS as a study
aid. And it helps games come alive,
speaking while you play
Whatever your computer can
do, the PSS can help it do it better at
a cost that makes it all worthwhile:
only $395* Call (3 1 3) 583-9884 to hear an actual voice
demonstration of the PSS.
"Suggested retal price
There's also the Type 'N Talk.
If you want a less sophisticated unit and want to spend a
little less, consider the Votrax Type 'N Talk (TNT). Its vocab-
ulary is also limited only by what you can type. It doesn't
use any computer memory it's compatible with most
computers, and rt's only $249* Just plug it in to your own
speaker and go!
For more information about the Personal Speech
System or the Type 'N Talk, see your local computer
retailer call toll-free or write:
jU V^i -I/A\ Troy Michigan 48083
1-800-521-1350
(In Michigan, call colled
313-588-0341)
The management program must
know the number of files, their record
lengths, and the number and lengths
of the fields in each file. For each file,
an initialization routine calculates the
number of 2 56-byte sectors required
for each logical record and then cal-
culates a standard buffer length. If the
logical record length is (or is just one
byte short of) a multiple of the sector
length, the routine assigns a 12 8-byte
buffer. In other cases where the
record length is not an exact multiple
of the sector length, the buffer length
will be less than 2 56 bytes, and the
record length will be rounded up to
a multiple of the buffer length. Each
buffer will be treated as a single field
for interaction with the interpreter.
Single-dimensioned arrays (one of in-
tegers, the other of strings) hold the
file buffer lengths and the buffer field
variables. The number of elements of
the arrays is the number of files to be
handled. A third array of dummy
strings is set up at the same time; the
length of each string element is set to
that of the corresponding file buffer.
You can then open the files with the
appropriate buffer lengths.
Next, the routine sets up a two-di-
mensional array of strings for the
logical fields. One dimension's size
equals the total number of files; the
other dimension's size is the largest
number of fields used in any file. For
each file, the routine points the ap-
propriate strings in the array sequen-
tially at the protected memory buffer
by manipulating the array's VARPTR
function. All the logical records are
thus mapped onto the same area of
memory, a safe process because only
one file can be read from or written
to at any time and because the buf-
fer is only used for temporary storage.
When the routine writes a record,
it transfers data to the fields in the
memory buffer using the LSET or
RSET block-move commands, just as
if the fields were ordinary field vari-
ables. It then uses the appropriate
dummy string as a window and steps
across the memory buffer by manip-
ulating the pointer to its address.
After each step, it uses LSET to trans-
(continued)
156 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 371
»•»:
H
r
■ii
_V Wl-^
dflRH
if Staying Well informed can
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Then there's USA TODAY Update, with
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Inquiry 71
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VIRTUAL FIELDING
Listing 1 : A short demonstration program.
10 REM DEMO LONG BUFFER PROGRAM FOR TWO FILES:MULTIFILE
METHOD.
11 ' C.R.J. CURRIE. 18 DECEMBER 1984
14 '
15 REM *"* CLEAR (STRING SPACE IF NEEDED), SET SAFETY MARGIN
20 ' FOR MBASIC-86, USE 600: FOR TRS-80, USE 10
24 '
25 CLEAR 5000:DEFINT F:MG = 600
26 '
27 REM •*" DETERMINE ADDRESS OF PROTECTED MEMORY BUFFER
28 ' LINE 30 MUST BE EXECUTED BEFORE ANY OTHER STRING WORK
29 '
30 A$ = A$:HI = PEEK(VARPTR(A$) + 1 ) + PEEK(VARPTR(A$) + 2)*256:HI = HI + MG
40 REM *" FOR TRS-80 MODEL l/lll USE:
41 REM "*• HI = PEEK(16561) + PEEK(16562)*256:HI = HI + MG
42 '
43 REM *** MOD FUNCTION IF YOUR BASIC LACKS IT
44 '
45 DEF FNMD%(A,B%) = A-(INT(A/B°/o)*B°/o)
49 '
50 READ NF%:DIM F$(NF°/o):' NUMBER OF FILES
57 '
58 REM *** TEST ON TWO EXISTING FILES FOR DEMO PURPOSES
59 '
60 FOR N°/c = 1 TO NF°/o:PRINT"NAME OF FILE NUMBER";N°/o;" ";:LINE INPUT
F$(N°/o)
70 NEXT
79 '
80 GOSUB 6000: REM "*" INITIALIZE BUFFERS
87 '
88 REM *** DEMO ARRAY
89 '
90 DIM B$(FO(1))
297 '
298 REM *"* DEMO READ (E.G., OF EXISTING TEXT FILE) -SECOND RECORD
299 '
300 FOR MO/o=1 TO NF%
310 KT$ = TIME$:RC = 2:GOSUB 1000:GOSUB 700:FOR N%=1 TO
FO(M°/o):PRINT B$(N°/o);:NEXT N%,M%:CLOSE:END
497 '
498 REM *•" WRITE VARIABLES TO MEMORY BUFFER: DEMO ONLY
499 '
500 FOR N°/o=1 TO FO(M°/o):LSET FA$(M°/o,N°/o) = B$(N%):NEXT:RETURN
697 '
698 REM *** READ VARIABLES FROM MEMORY BUFFER:DEMO ONLY
699 '
700 FOR N%=1 TO FO(M°/o):B$(N%) = FA$(M°/o,N°/o):NEXT:RETURN
997 '
998 REM *** READ RECORD FROM DISK-INVARIANT; M°/o = FILE NUMBER,
RC = LOGICAL RECORD NUMBER
999'
1000 FSTART! = HI:FOR N%=1 TO NBUF%(M°/o)
1020 GET M%,(RC-1)*NBUF%(M°/o) + N%
1024 '
1025 GOSUB 23000:REM *** MOVE WINDOW THROUGH MEMORY BUFFER
1029 '
1030 LSET FC$(M%) = FB$(M%):NEXT
1050 RETURN
1997 '
1998 REM *** WRITE RECORD TO DISK-INVARIANT
1999 '
(continued)
fer the contents of the memory buf-
fer to the file buffer and that buffer
is written to disk. A loop handles
these operations easily. Tb read a
record, the routine reverses the pro-
cedure, lb ensure that the logical field
strings keep pointing at their correct
places in the memory buffer, you
need only avoid using them on the
left side of an assignment statement
other than MID$, LSET, or RSET.
The sum of the longest record
length and the space occupied by the
3-byte string pointers of the logical
field array determines the maximum
number of files and fields and the size
of record. A 15-row by 100-column
string array uses less than 5K bytes for
pointers. With 2 55-byte logical fields,
that would allow each record of each
of the 1 5 possible files to have up to
2 5,500 bytes, or a total of 382,500
bytes, at a sacrifice of only 30K bytes
of RAM (random-access read/write
memory). In 16-bit MBASIC that still
leaves 32K bytes for the program and
space in which to manipulate the
data.
A demonstration program (see
listing 1) reads data from two files
whose record lengths are 1066 bytes
and 701 bytes. The program assumes
a default record length of 2 56 bytes;
in some versions of MBASIC, you
must specify this default when you
load BASIC. The demonstration files
use all string fields, but the method
is equally applicable to MBASIC's
compressed numeric fields. You can
use existing text files to test the
program.
DATA statements at the end of the
program store the number of files,
and for each file the record length and
the number and length of fields. For
files with very long record lengths,
however, it would be more appropri-
ate to store that information in a
separate sequential file and read it in
at the beginning of the run, replacing
all READ statements by INPUT*
statements. Note that the data for the
file with the most fields must head the
list. Line 45 defines a modulo func-
tion; it is not needed for MBASIC ver-
sions that have a MOD function. For
{continued)
158 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
The $ 69.^ solution.
Order GP-Tools by calling toll-free: 1-800-821-2165
(In Florida, call collect: 305/657-1144)
Major Credit Cards Accepted
?
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1 30 UNIVERSITY PARK DRIVE - SUITE 1 85
WINTER PARK, FLORIDA 32792
TELEPHONE 305/657-1144
'1985 Allen-Harris Industries, Inc.
Inquiry 13
GP-TOOLS a division of Allen-Harris In Justries. Inc.
GP-TOOLS includes GP-File. GP-Print and GP-Ulility.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
159
VIRTUAL FIELDING
2000 FSTART! = HI:FOR N°/o=1 TO NBUF°/o(M°/o):GOSUB 23000:LSET
FB$(M°/o) = FC$(M%)
2010 PUT M%,(RC-1)*NBUF%(M°/o) + N°/o:NEXT
2020 RETURN
5997 '
5998 REM *** BUFFER INITIALIZATION ROUTINE: INVARIANT
5999 '
6000 DIM BU%(NF%),FC$(NF%),FB$(NF%),NBUF°/o(NF%),FO(NF%)
6010 FOR M%=1 TO NF%:GOSUB 6020:NEXT M%:RETURN
6017 '
6018 REM *"* CALCULATE BUFFER LENGTHS FOR EACH FILE
6019 '
6020 FSTART! = HI
6030 READ RLREM •** RECORD LENGTH
6040 READ FO(M%):REM *** NUMBER OF LOGICAL FIELDS
6050 IF M%=1 THEN DIM FA$(NF°/o,FO(1)):' ARRAY FOR FIELDS
6060 NBUF%(M%) = INT(RL/256):IF FNMD°/o(RL,256) = 255 THEN
RL = RL+1:GOTO6060
6070 IF FNMD%(RL,256) = THEN
NBUF%(M%) = NBUF%(M%)*2:BU°/o(M°/o) = 128:GOSUB 20015 ELSE GOSUB
20000:REM "* FIELD FILE BUFFER AND DUPLICATE BUFFERS
6097 '
6098 REM *** NOW FIELD LOGICAL FIELDS
6099 '
6100 FSTART! = HI
6110 FOR N%=1 TO FO(M%):READ A%;TP = VARPTR(FA$(M°/o,N°/o)):POKE
TP,A°/o:GOSUB 25000:FSTART! = FSTART! + A°/o
6120 NEXT N%
6130 RETURN
19997 '
19998 REM *** FILE BUFFERS FOR IRREGULAR RECORD LENGTH
19999 •
20000 NBUF°/o(M%) = NBUF°/o(M°/o) + 1 :BU°/o(M%) = INT(RL/NBUF%(M%))
20010 IF FNMD%(RL,NBUF%(M%))< >0 THEN BU°/o(M%) = BU°/o(M°/o)+ 1
20015 FC$(M°/o) = FC$(M°/o):GOSUB 22000:RETURN
21997 '
21998 REM *** OPEN FILES
21999 '
22000 OPEN"R",M%,F$(M°/o),BU°/o(M%)
22010 FIELD M°/o.(BU°/o(M%)) AS FB$(M°/o)
22020 RETURN
23000 TP = VARPTR(FC$(M%)):POKE TP,BU°/o(M%)
23010 GOSUB 25000
23020 FSTARTI = FSTART! + BU°/o(M%): RETURN
24997 '
24998 REM *" POINT STRING AT MEMORY BUFFER
24999 '
25000 POKE TP + 1,FNMD°/o(FSTART!,256);POKE
TP + 2,INT(FSTART!/256):RETURN
29997 '
29998 REM *" DEMO DATA:CHANGE AS APPROPRIATE
29999 '
30000 DATA 2:REM "" NUMBER OF FILES
30005 DATA 1066:REM *** RECORD LENGTH OF FIRST FILE
30010 DATA 6:REM *** NUMBER OF LOGICAL FIELDS
30020 DATA 101,151,202,203,204,205:'LOGICAL FIELD LENGTHS
30030 DATA 701:REM *** RECORD LENGTH OF SECOND FILE
30035 DATA 4:REM *** NUMBER OF LOGICAL FIELDS, FILE 2
30040 DATA 200,200,200, 101 .'FIELD LENGTHS FOR FILE 2
those versions, you can replace calls
of the form X%= FNMOD°/o(A,B°/o)
with X%=A MOD B°/o.
The program begins by calculating
the address of the bottom of pro-
tected memory (line 30), allowing a
safety margin (MG) above the top of
BASIC'S string space (which you must
adjust for your version of MBASIC).
The program then reads the number
of files and sets up an array of file-
names that it reads from the key-
board. Line 6000 begins the main ini-
tialization routine, which is invariant
in form for all virtual-fielding applica-
tions. The initialization sets up the ar-
rays for buffer lengths (BU%). dum-
my string windows (FC$), file buffers
(FB$), buffer numbers (NBUF%). and
numbers of fields (FO). A separate
subroutine at line 6020 calculates the
number of sectors needed for the
logical record of each file. If required,
that separate subroutine calls the
routine that computes irregular buf-
fer lengths (beginning at line 20000)
and then calls the file-opening routine
at line 22000. The program can later
call the file-opening routine if any file
has been closed in the meantime,
after setting M°/o equal to the number
of the closed file. Lines 6100-6130 set
up the logical fields (FAS).
Lines 500 and 700 provide two
straightforward demonstration sub-
routines for transferring data to and
from the logical record buffers; only
the read routine is used here. The
routines for reading and writing a
record to disk are at lines 1000-1050
and 2000-2020. Like the initialization
routine, they are invariant for all
virtual-fielding applications. Both call
a subroutine at 23000, which steps
the FC$ dummy string through the
memory buffer by altering its address.
Virtual fielding should remain useful
in the future because the technique
works well under both 8-bit and the
current 16-bit versions of Microsoft
BASIC. Today we have more advanced
16-bit versions of Microsoft BASIC
that allow for 64K-byte strings and a
megabyte or more of address space,
and we have computers using optical
storage media with capacities of hun-
dreds of megabytes. ■
160 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
READ
ONLY
A review of the IBM Personal Computer Family. Vol. 2, No. 3
HARDWARE NEWS
A growing family of PC
Printers.
Different jobs demand different
printers. IBM has developed a full
line of printers for its Personal
Computer Family to answer those
demands, two of the most recent -
the IBM Proprinter and the IBM
Color- Jetprinter— deserve special
mention.
Both are compatible
with the IBM PC
Family of Persona
Computers as well as
with many other lead
ing home and office
personal computers. And
both offer the traditional
high standard of IBM relia
bility and support.
The IBM Proprinter.
The IBM Proprinter alone can
help you complete a variety of dif-
ferent home or office jobs.
It has an unusual feature that will
be welcomed by everyone who has
spent time switching back and forth
from single-sheet to continuous
forms printing. A special slot in the
front of the Proprinter allows you to
print single pages or envelopes
quickly and easily without removing
the continuous forms paper.
The Proprinters high-speed
(200 cpsl. dot-matrix technology can
make short work of your day-to-day
printing tasks like first drafts of
letters or reports.
For more finished work, the Pro-
printer does near-letter-quality
printing (at 40 cpsl and lets you add
emphasis to your text (at MX) cps)
with bold print, condensed print
and underlining.
It also has all-points-addressable
graphics capabilities that can help
you produce a complete range of
charts and graphs to illustrate your
text.
One additional plus: it's very com-
petitively priced.
IBM Proprinter has a convenient
slot for printing envelopes or single
pages.
IBM Color Jetprinter quietly utilizes "drop^n-demand* ink jet technology.
The IBM Color Jetpr inter.
The IBM Color Jetprinter is an
unusually quiet, compact worksta-
tion printer that utilizes advanced
"drop-on-demand" ink jet
technology.
-
",,«:■ _■- hi r- B wg
\
■ ■ ■
1 ll
ill, III 1
■
Samples of color graphics and texts
produced by IBM Color Jetprinter.
Designed to be used with the IBM
PC and many other personal com-
puters, its supported by a wide
selection of software programs.
You can use it to produce draft
and near-letter-quality text and
high-quality graphics in up to seven
colors.
In addition, the Jetprinter allows
you to highlight your text with bold
and underlined passages done in
color or printed against a back-
ground color.
The Color Jetprinter also prints
graphs, charts, engineering draw-
ings and texts directly onto special
Jetprinter transparencies for
presentations.
And. thanks to a unique non-
clogging ink formula, it performs all
these functions very reliably.
Videotex connections.
Videotex provides a key to much
of our future shopping, entertain-
ment and business information.
Videotex services, using existing
telephone lines, already supply
travel information, personal shop-
ping options and personalized mes-
saging, banking and investing
services.
PC Videotex software from IBM
allows you to access these services
from your IBM Personal Com-
puter. IBM Personal Computer
XT™ IBM Personal Computer
AT® or IBM PCjr™
With only a few simple com-
mands, you can use your IBM
PC to receive, display, store and
replay the data you choose in
high-resolution color graphics and
texts.
And if you need more than infor-
mation retrieval. PC Videotex, in
certain configurations, can be used
to support your own Videotex data
base.
WHAT'S THE PROGRAM?
Create your own
presentations.
Everyone who has ever put to-
gether a visual presentation for a
business meeting or other educa-
tional purpose can now take heart.
With the help of IBM PC Story-
board software, an IBM PC and a
color' graphics monitor you can turn
out professional-looking, captivating
presentations complete w ith color,
special effects and eye-catching
graphics.
PC Storyboards four- modules-
Picture Taker'. Picture Maker; Story
Editor and Story Teller - — make it
fast, easy and comparatively inex-
pensive to create, combine and
modify pictures and stories. There's
even arr animation function that
makes it possible for birds to fly.
ships to move across water, words to
become bigger.
K***^
-'
Information at your
fingertips.
IBM PC I Ideotex software makes
I ideotex connections in high-
resolution color graphics and text.
Picture Taker lets you store the
contents of screen displays from
software you regularly work with,
such as spreadsheet, business
graphics, drawing or word process-
ing programs.
You can use the Picture Maker
module to edit and combine the
graphics you've saved. Picture
Maker also allows you to create
completely new pictures containing
both text— in a variety of type
styles— and graphic figures.
Story Editor helps you organize
and edit your pictures into a pre-
sentation and add various special
effects. The results can be
dramatic.
You can then use the Story Teller
module to display the results on an
IBM PC Color Display, on a TV or
w itli a video projector.
The finished presentation can be
copied on diskettes for distribution.
\ou can also produce printed copies
w ith a graphics printer like the IBM
Color Jetprinter reviewed in this
issue of Head Only.
After that, all you need is a
director's chair from which to view
the finished product.
Expand capabilities with IBM
Planning Assistant Solutions. IBM
Document Retrieval Assistant and
PC Storyboard software.
A few months ago in this
space, we reviewed Office Corre-
spondence Retrieval System
(OCRS I software from IBM. which
provides a convenient way to keep
track of information that otherwise
might be filed and never found
again.
That same application is now
available as a member of the IBM
Assistant Series, with an easy-to-use
menu system that's consistent with
those found in other Assistant Se-
ries programs.
Like the original OCRS software,
IBM Document Retrieval Assistant
makes life much easier for anyone
who stores large amounts of infor-
mation on a fixed disk or who has a
library of documents, memos or
files stored on diskettes.
First, it automatically summa-
rizes information and stores it for
future reference. Second, and most
important. Document Retrieval As-
sistant allows you to locate
information with simple English-
language queries.
Among other popular word pro-
cessing software. Document
Retrieval Assistant works with IBM
Writing Assistant. IBM PCWriter.
the IBM DisplayWrite Series, and
WordStar® (version 3 JO or higher).
WordStar is a registered trademark of
MicroPro International Corporation.
Financial planning.
Life is riddled with seemingly
straightforward questions that re-
sult in headaches instead of
answers. Questions like. "What's my
net worth?"" and "How much will
my monthly payments be?""
i i n «——
IBM Planning Assistant
Solutions
Storyboard
^^^S 5 -
IBM Planning Assistant Solutions
and IMM Planning Assistant work
together to help yon find the an-
swers even if you're not familiar
with the math involved. All yon have
to do is fill in the required informa-
#3c Com?**
Version 1f
IBM BASIC Compiler 2.(H) updates
an indispensable business
programming tool.
linn on simply designed spread-
sheets. Your IBM Personal Com-
puter does the hard part.
Planning Assistant Solutions in-
cludes spreadsheets like Loan
Calculation and Heal Kstate Analy-
sis for home use. Others, like Travel
Expense Form and Financial State-
ment Worksheet, can help you sort
out your business finances.
Many of the spreadsheets can use
information from files you've cre-
ated with IBM Filing Assistant. \ou
can also include tlie results of your
Planning Assistant Solutions work
in IBM Writing Assistant documents
and present them graphically with
IBM Graphing Assistant.
BASK; improvements.
Its good to know that in a busi-
ness based on technological
advances, the basics aren't forgotten.
The IBM BASK Compiler 2.00
gives exactly that reassurance. Its
an improved version of an indis-
pensable business programming
tool for the entire Family of IBM
Personal Computers.
Among many significant im-
provements, the most recent
version of IBM's BASIC Com-
piler includes better program
control structures, allows you to
compile larger programs and
supports larger arrays.
It also supports the
IBM PC Network en-
vironment, provides
better access to your
IBM Disk Operating
System (DOS), runs
under Tbp\ iew. and
offers expanded
graphics capa-
bilities.
And there's a
trade-up offer for
current licensees
that represents a
significant sav-
ings on the IBM
BASIC Compiler 2.(H). See your
Authorized IBM Personal Com-
puter Dealer or IBM Product
Center for details.
!
1
m
program on your display (win-
dowing). This, in turn, makes fast
work of switching back and forth
among programs that you use fre-
quently—word processing, filing
and spreadsheet applications, for
example.
The TopYiew Application Guides
shown below are now included when
you purchase a TopYiew program.
They're useful listings of the many
programs— IBM applications and
software from non-IBM sources—
that can be rrsed with TopYiew.
Both are arranged alphabetically
and include special operating con-
siderations and notes whenever
necessary.
TopView
Application Guide
T°PV ievv
^tfo,
*Ppli,
"Gu/de
Guides to the top.
IBM TopYiew™ is a program
that allows you to run more
than one program at a time
(multitasking) and to view
screens from more than one
Ihpl iew Application Guides now
i included with the program
IBM and Personal Computer AT are registered
trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation. Personal Computer XT. PC>r and
TopView are trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation.
tor more information about IBM
Personal Computer products
discussed in this issue of Html Only.
see your Authorized IBM Personal
Computer Dealer or IBM Product
Center. Or call 800-447-4700. In
Alaska call BOO- 1 I7-08«M>.
l'M."> Internatimal Business Machines G>rporati<rti
Little Tramp character licensed by Bubbles Inc.. S.A.
PROGRAMMING INSIGHT
TRAVESTY
WITH DATABASE
by Neil J. Rubenking
Breakdown is a fast travesty generator
that stores frequency information in a database
Editor's note: Travesty generation has ap-
parently caught the interest of BYTE readers.
The original travesty generator— a Turbo
Pascal program using letter-combination fre-
quencies to generate random text— was pre-
sented by Hugh tenner and Joseph O'Rourke
("A Travesty Generator for Micros',' November
1984 BYTE, page 129). The programs ex-
ecution time, however, depends on the prod-
uct of the lengths of the input string (the in-
put text file) and the output string [the desired
amount of output text). Readers have been
working on improving the speed and capabil-
ities of Travesty, the original program, since
then. First, we had Murray Lesser ("Traves-
ty Rev/sited." )uly BYTE, page 163) rewrite
Travesty in Microsoft BASIC. Next, we had
Peter Wayner ("Build a Travesty Tree'.'
September BYTE, page 183) use a BASIC
program that improves execution time by stor-
ing frequency tables as data trees in memory.
Now we have a different version of Travesty-
Breakdown— written in Turbo Pascal by Neil
I. Rubenking. This program improves perfor-
mance and avoids rereading the input text by
storing the frequency information in a
database.
I was fascinated by the original
travesty-generator program, but I
found the execution speed unbear-
ably slow for large texts. Scanning the
whole text for each character took too
long, and the limitations of Hellbat
were not acceptable to me. I devel-
oped a different version of Travesty,
which I call Breakdown to distinguish
it from the original program. In brief,
what makes Breakdown different from
Travesty is that it stores its data as a
file of frequency tables with B-tree ac-
cess. You don't have to read through
the original text each time you want
to create a travesty, and you can even
read in several texts by the same
author, producing a more detailed
"style table."
Note that there are calls (AddRec,
FindKey, GetRec, PutRec, etc.) to an
optional , software package— Turbo
Toolbox— that may require modifica-
tion for use with your particular con-
figuration. This program may be freely
copied for noncommercial use only.
| Editor's note: The source code for Breakdown
and a documentation file are available for
downloading via BYTEnet Listings. The tele-
phone number is (617) 861-9764.]
To analyze a text. Breakdown looks
at it in chunks of a particular size (one
less than the "order") and keeps a
record of which characters occur im-
mediately after that pattern. If the
chunk is new to the frequency table,
it is added to the table. Its frequency
array is initially all zeros, except for
the current next character. If the
chunk already exists in the table, its
frequency array is incremented by
one for the current next character.
Then the chunk is shifted one charac-
ter to the right and the process goes
on— that is, the chunk's first character
is dropped and the current next char-
acter is tacked onto the end.
Checking to see if the chunk is pres-
ent would be a difficult task if the fre-
quency table were stored sequential-
ly. Fortunately, Borland International's
Turbo Toolbox implements fast in-
dexed storage using the B-tree sys-
tem. The chunks of text are stored in
the B-tree index file— they are the keys.
The data file contains only the fre-
quency arrays. Ordinarily, the keys
would also be stored in the data file,
but this redundancy is not strictly
necessary. Since the data file can con-
ceivably contain one record for every
byte in the source, we want to keep
the record size to a minimum. (This
[continued)
Neil ]. Rubenking (300 Page St., San Fran-
cisco, CA 94 102) is a systems analyst for the
Zen Center of San Francisco and is president
of the San Francisco PC Users' Group.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 161
TRAVESTY
Breakdown lets you
combine data files
to make bizarre hybrids
of two authors' works.
"worst case" would occur only if no
pattern in the text occurred more than
once.)
At present, Breakdown tracks 34
characters. These are the 26 lower-
case alphabetic characters, along with
the space, period, comma, dash,
question mark, number symbol, single
quote, and ASCII character 20 (the
paragraph symbol). If a line is shorter
than the constant LineWidth (currently
set to 55). it is considered to have
ended "early" with a hard carriage
return and is marked with the para-
graph symbol at the end. In the pre-
processing phase (procedure Clean-
up), all letters are converted to lower-
case, all numbers are reduced to a
single # symbol, double quotes
become single quotes, and all unused
punctuation is removed. It would, of
course, be possible to track more
characters, but each character adds a
byte to every record.
To generate new text, Breakdown
randomly selects a key that begins
with a space (i.e.. one that doesn't
start in the middle of a word.) It then
looks up the frequency array for that
key and selects the next character at
random from the characters with non-
zero frequencies, weighted by the fre-
quencies. This character is added to
the current output line and to the cur-
rent key chunk. If the paragraph sym-
bol is encountered, the line is auto-
matically ended. Also, the current line
ends at the first space encountered
after its length surpasses the Line-
Width constant. The first alphabetic
character after a period, question
mark, or line end is capitalized.
Breakdown is a prime candidate for
RAM-disk operation. The B-tree file
access limits the number of disk ac-
cesses quite a bit. but there are still
several accesses for each byte in the
source file. The data file of a text
under 10K bytes in length will definite-
ly fit on one 360K-byte floppy disk,
but an UK-byte file could run over
that length. You may distribute your
files to various disk drives— a likely ar-
rangement is DAT file on drive B and
source, INX file, and the Breakdown
program on drive A.
The higher the order, the more in-
telligible the output will be. However,
a high order and a short text will
mostly just regenerate the original.
Experiment with various texts and
various orders. You can use the List
(L) option to see what sort of records
are being generated. For a 2000-byte
file using an order of 8, Breakdown
takes 9 minutes to input and 7 minutes
to output. Breakdown has been tried
on a lOOK-byte text file, with the order
set to the maximum of 8. It took over
6 hours and generated a 1 .8-megabyte
data file, but it worked.
Breakdown will prompt you for the
order each time you make a selection
from the menu. After you have
entered an order, you can just press
the carriage return for the previous
value. The filename Main works the
same way— after the first time you
enter it. pressing the carriage return
will recall the same name. The default
for the .DAT and .INX drives and the
output file, if any. is the same as the
source file. Thus, if you have Analyzed
(A) a text with all its files on one drive,
you can fill in the blanks for Gen-
erating (G) a travesty by repeatedly
pressing the carriage return.
The Merge (M) option lets you com-
bine two data files, possibly from wild-
ly different sources. The data and
index files of the "source" will be per-
manently changed, so you may want
to keep a copy of the original files.
You can also "read in" another text
into an existing data file. Use this op-
tion to build up a frequency-table
"model" of a particular author or to
make bizarre hybrids by combining
two authors' works.
Breakdown is a moderately sophis-
ticated database program with almost
no "serious" uses. However, there are
all kinds of nonserious uses for it. For
instance, you can read in three or four
"letters from camp" and then let the
computer generate more, or you can
generate new speeches based on our
President's proclamations, or make up
your own use for this new travesty-
generation technique. ■
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162 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 204
Which leading
monitor company
lets you best
display the
advantages of IBM's
new color
graphics cards?
Princeton Gra
In a class
When you put Princeton Graphic Systems Monitors to work
with IBM's new graphics cards, you step up to a new class of
performance. Exciting RGB color, sharp, crisp graphics and
text and Princeton's quality and reliability... all at a great pricel
Our full line of monitors clearly demonstrates why
Princeton is an industry leader in high -resolution technology.
Princeton SR- 12P Color Monitor
The first IBM compatible monitor available for the IBM
Professional Graphics Controller.*
Princeton HX 12L Color Monitor
The superior choice for use with IBM's Enhanced
Graphics Adapter.*
^
COMPARE:
Princeton
SR-12P
IBM
5175
Dot pitch
(The lower, tHe better.)
.26 mm
.31 mm
Sugg. Retail Price
(The lower, the better tool)
$999
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Warranty
1 Year
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Designed for demanding professionals who won't
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COMPARE:
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HX-12E
IBM
5154
Dot pitch
.28 mm
.31 mm
Sugg. Retail Price
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$849
Tinted Black Matrix Tube
Yes
No
Warranty
1 Year
90 days
Ideal for most computing applications, the HX-12E
offers 64 high-resolution colors and easy-to-read text.
It gives you sharp colors, crisp characters ... for less
eye strain and easier viewing, hour after hour. Built-in
versatility also allows you to display 16 colors with the
IBM Color Graphics Adapter* automatically.
164 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
phic Systems
above the rest
Princeton HX 9E
The first 9" RGB monitor to take advantage of
IBM's Enhanced Graphics Adapter*
For more performance in less space, the
Princeton HX-9E is in a class by itself. Nobody
else— not even IBM— offers a 9", high-resolution
display Features 64 brilliant colors and a .28mm
dot pitch for sharp, crisp text. Can be conveniently
used with IBM's Color Graphics Adapter*
Our other monitors also give you full IBM
compatibility:
Princeton HX-9 Color Monitor— features a
built-in switch for green or amber text. Built-in
tilt-and-swivel base.
Princeton SR-12 Color Monitor— boasts twice
the vertical resolution of the IBM Color Display**
. . . and works with other cards such as the Sigma
Designs Color 400.
Princeton MAX-12 Amber Monochrome
Monitor— ergonomically designed to give you up
to 15*** shades of high-resolution amber. . . plus
high-resolution text and graphics when used with
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Princeton HX-12 Color Monitor— 16 sharp, clear
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PRINCETON
Inquiry 29I
GRAPHIC SYSTEMS
INTILLIBINT SYSTEMS COMPANY
DECEMBER 1 98 5 'BYTE 165
-J-'r-.
. )
GVTE
Computer
Conferencing
An Overview of Conferencing Systems
by Brock N. Meeks 169
Conferencing Standards
by ]acob Palme 187
Database Structure in PortaCOM
by Jacob Palme 195
The Network Application Manager
by Robert A. Flavin and lack D. Wlliford . . 203
Storage Architectures
by Alastair }. W. Mayer 221
Common Ground
by Chris Hancock 239
Local Power in a Remote Link
by Chuck McManis 251
Conversations
by Douglas E. Comer
and Larry L. Peterson 263
Cross-System Conferencing
with CLACR by Sherwin M. Levinson . . . 273
COMPUTER CONFERENCES bring together people with similar interests and
complementary needs to exchange information and discuss problems. Con-
ference participants can join a discussion whenever they please, wherever they
have access to a computer or a terminal, a modem, and a phone line. Often,
in fact, conference members carry on lively discussions with people they have
never met face to face. BYTE's own conferencing system, BIX (BYTE Informa-
tion Exchange), is a good example of this emerging trend, with active discus-
sions on hundreds of topics of interest to BYTE readers.
This month. Brock Meeks's "An Overview of Conferencing Systems" com-
pares several conferencing systems, including systems designed for business,
academia, research, and general discussion and recreation.
Many people who use conferencing systems and electronic bulletin boards
extensively find themselves subscribing to several services. Communication
between conferencing systems would allow users to expand their informa-
tion networks without the confusion involved in joining many systems. This
sort of exchange of message traffic requires standards, however. "Conferenc-
ing Standards" by Jacob Palme offers guidelines for these standards.
The internal structure of a conferencing system can affect its flexibility and
efficiency. Three articles in this issue— Alastair Mayer's "Storage Architectures,"
Jacob Palme's "Database Structure in PortaCOM," and "Conversations" by
Douglas Comer and Larry Peterson— describe effective solutions to problems
inherent in designing conferencing systems.
"Common Ground" by Chris Hancock describes a microcomputer-based con-
ferencing system designed to be flexible and easy to use. "The Network Ap-
plication Manager" by Robert Flavin and Jack Williford details the design and
implementation of GRANDiose, a huge network-based system that can sup-
port any application that involves communication.
It seems a shame to waste the power of the microcomputer by using it as
a dumb terminal when, with proper programming and cooperation from the
host system, the micro could handle much of the processing involved in con-
ferencing. Chuck McManis's "Local Power in a Remote Link" and Sherwin Levin-
son's "Cross-System Conferencing with CLACR" approach this problem.
As more and more people discover the advantages of computer confer-
encing over more traditional forms of communication, electronic communities
are beginning to take shape, bringing together people of diverse backgrounds
and similar interests to exchange ideas and information.
— Donna Osgood. Associate Editor
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 167
At The Future is
at Gold Hill Today
You know artificial intelligence is the
wave of the future. Programs based
on the ideas of artificial intelligence
are being written today in Common
Lisp- the new Lisp standard
developed by researchers from
universities and corporations
such as Carnegie Mellon, DEC,
MIT, Stanford, Symbolics
and TI. Lisp allows the devel-
opment of programs that are
intelligent, flexible, and even
human like. The problem has
been that hardware needed to
run Lisp is expensive.
No longer. Golden Common
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for you to learn and use Lisp on
your personal computer. When you
use GC Lisp in combination with the
AI examples provided, you will be
able to develop such exciting appli
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interfaces to complex software.
The possibilities are endless. With
GC Lisp you can tackle problems
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with ordinary number crunching
programs. You will be able to write
powerful programs that can accom-
modate casual computer users who
want intelligible answers quickly.
Easy to Learn
GC Lisp makes it easy for you to learn
the technology of AI at your own
pace. Each package includes the San
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software tutorial developed by
Patrick H. Winston and his associ-
ciates. This 800-frame instructional
Golden Common Lisp is the best selling
AI language.
system guides you through the
steps of Lisp programming and
makes the full range of Lisp's
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The second edition of the classic
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More Power
GC Lisp comes complete with the
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Golden Common Lisp comes with
everything you need to program in
Lisp. GC Lisp is the most powerful
Lisp available today on PCs; some of
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value returning functions.
The Complete Solution
In addition to GC Lisp, Gold Hill
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These include the GC Lisp
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GOLDEN Common Lisp and GC LISP art trademarks of Gold Hill Computers. The San Marco Lisp Explorer is a trademark of San Marco Associates.
L/spis copyrighted by Addison- Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. The COMMON LISP Reference Manual 'is copyrighted by Digital Equipment
Corporation. IBM PC, PC XT, PC AT. and PC-DOS are trademarks of International Business Machines.
Halo Graphics is a trademark of Media Cybernetics, Symbolics is a trademark of Symbolics, Inc.
168 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 153
COMPUTER CONFERENCING
AN OVERVIEW OF
CONFERENCING
SYSTEMS
by Brock N. Meeks
A guided tour
through COM, EIES, PARTI, NOTEPAD, and other systems
NUOSO LIVES on the African conti-
nent. Exactly where he lives and the
name of his tribe is not important;
Nuoso is a nonperson. Convicted of
a crime against his tribal society, he
is forbidden to communicate with his
family, his friends, in short, with
anyone. His communication cut off,
Nuoso quickly withdraws from the
village. Eventually he will cease to
exist even in his own mind, and he will
literally die from lack of communica-
tion.
Just as people need food, water, and
shelter, so they need to communicate.
From the earliest days of history, our
ancestors sought better ways to com-
municate. Primitive maps scrawled in
the dust gave way to cave paintings,
where information retrieval entailed
nothing more complicated than
remembering the right wall in the
right cave. But just as society became
more complex, so did the communi-
cation needs of the population.
Early telegraph links, in Napoleon's
time, had signal speeds of about two
characters per second. In 1913
vacuum-tube repeaters were intro-
duced to telephony, and a rapid suc-
cession of advancements in the world
of electronics followed. In 1918 the
first carrier system permitted several
voice channels to occupy a single pair
of wires. The early 1940s saw high-
capacity coaxial cables beginning to
replace twisted-pair cables. Micro-
wave links emerged in 1946 with the
capacity to carry more than 10,000
telephone channels. Today's phone
system uses satellite links and will
soon use fiber optics. In a hundred
years our communication capability
has risen from fifteen to a billion bits
per second, from two to over a hun-
dred million characters per second.
And all for the sake of improving com-
munication with each other.
The Birth
of Computer Conferencing
Early in 1970, political and economic
pressures set the stage for the crea-
tion of a revolutionary means of com-
munication. In the fall of 1971 the en-
tire economic structure of the United
States fell under the control of Presi-
dent Nixon's wage-price freeze.
Because of the tremendous need to
handle the reporting and information
dissemination of the price freeze, the
Office of Emergency Preparedness
(OEP) commissioned Murray Turoff to
create a computerized version of the
"conference call." Turoff responded by
developing the Emergency Manage-
ment Information System and Refer-
ence Index (EMISAR1).
The EM1SAR1 system operated as an
electronic network linking the ten OEP
regional offices. The new price con-
trols created a nationwide demand for
information, guidelines, rulings, of-
ficial statements, and policy clarifica-
tions from businesses, labor unions,
and administrators. Because EMISARI
eliminated the constraints of time and
geographic location, the OEP's
regional administrators were able to
secure time-critical information at
their convenience. The instant access
of EMISARI allowed Washington to
update policy as it happened and
gave all involved the opportunity to
respond or ask questions— with both
[continued)
Brock N. Meeks (161 East Main St.. San
Diego. CA 92020) is a freelance writer. He
can usually be found on line in places too
numerous to mention.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
169
OVERVIEW
answers and responses maintained on
line for all to review. This revolutionary
idea of storing messages on line and
allowing "many-to-many" communica-
tions became the first computer-
based conferencing system.
EMISARI consisted of two systems:
Party-Line, the computerized counter-
part of the telephone conference call,
and Discussion, an on-line "file
cabinet" of topic-specific messages
stored on line for all to see and com-
ment on. These two elements became
the building blocks for the computer
conferencing systems of today.
Although EMISARI was preceded
by the Department of Defense's
packet-switched message-transfer net-
work ARPANET, the history of com-
puter conferencing after EMISARI
reads like the Bible's first chapter of
Matthew: EMISARI conceived two off-
spring, Party-Line and Discussion.
Party-Line and Discussion begat EIES
EIES begat PARTICIPATE, which bore
many sons (revisions). And so on.
What follows is an overview of these
and other top computer conferencing
systems.
COM: Gateway to the World
Developed by the Swedish National
Defense Research Institute starting in
1977, COM has since undergone
many revisions and has even spun off
a "portable" system called PortaCOM.
PortaCOM, developed by a joint Euro-
pean research project, is designed to
act like its big brother COM while run-
ning on a variety of different com-
puters and operating systems.
Because the two systems are almost
identical, I'll refer to them both as
simply "COM."
COM operates as a gigantic interna-
tional electronic mailbox, with one in-
credible advantage: It offers full-blown
computer conferencing capability.
COM is a gateway to the world of
networks because it lets you route
electronic messages through a com-
plicated maze of networked computer
systems around the world. Using com-
puter systems at strategic sites as
"gateways,'' COM routes your
message to just about anyone that
participates in an electronic mail IE-
mail) system. (A gateway is a com-
puter that acts as a switching point
between various networks. COM sites
do not have direct access to computer
systems on ARPANET, for example,
but by routing messages through a
gateway system— one that does have
access to ARPANET— it can deliver
messages to ARPANET sites.)
What separates COM from the stan-
dard computer-based message sys-
tem is its ability to create and main-
tain computer conferences. It also lets
you create "parallel" conferences on
systems that use COM. Parallel con-
ferences allow participants at different
sites to contribute to the conferences
without logging onto a remote com-
puter. New additions to the con-
ference are then forwarded to the
other participating computer systems
and placed in the appropriate con-
ference. Thus, identical conferences
reside at separate locations.
COM operates mostly in academic
and research environments and car-
ries a very academic personality. This
personality doesn't make for a lot of
light conversation. However, if you
want to extend your knowledge base
in a global way, COM is the route to
go. High-level technical discussions
abound, and anyone who is anyone
in computer development is within
reach via COM. But there is a price
to pay in that the system is difficult to
learn. Experienced computer con-
ferencing/electronic mail users will
pick up on the system's intricacies in
the first few on-line sessions, while a
novice could be hopelessly lost. So
much is possible on COM that a new
user is overdosed on a plethora of
menus for almost every possible user
response.
Once you have slogged your way
through the basic commands (to read
messages, join conferences, and com-
ment on messages), you begin to ap-
preciate the power of COM.
Any person can create a new con-
ference (yes, there is separate menu
for that as well); however, statistics
published by the system's developers
show that users are reluctant to do
this and instead use the comment
capability to create a sort of "com-
ment tree." The comment tree func-
tions like a branching capability and
lets you follow a particular line of
thinking without the formality of
creating a separate conference.
There is no subscription service for
COM in the U.S., so to use it you must
be affiliated with an organization or
institution that is using the system.
For all the complexity and serious-
ness that is a part of COM, I found a
refreshingly wry sense of humor
residing just below the surface. Plow-
ing through the seemingly never-
ending command structure, I hit on
something called "Get Encourage-
ment." Like the U.S. Cavalry in a lohn
Wayne movie, COM delivered the
following to my weary 9-inch CRT
You are a very special person,
beautiful and wise, respected by
everybody around you. You are do-
ing a splendid job. Many people love
you, body and soul. You make life
easier for others. You are a very warm
and sensitive person.
Be proud of being You! You have
a very good reason.
EIES: Customized
Conferencing
Murray Turoff's Electronic Information
Exchange System (EIES), itself an off-
shoot of EMISARI, is the "biological"
breeding ground of the computer
conferencing world. It is the example
that all other computer conferencing
systems have followed— and improved
upon.
Like any venerable software in to-
day's computer environment, EIES
has shouldered its share of abuse
from critics and the new kids on the
block. The complaints range from "Its
response time is too slow" (true) to
"The commands are so numerous you
can never learn them all" (also true).
But a software package doesn't thrive
(or even survive) if it does not have
solid support and input— both of
which EIES is privileged to have, and
from some of the best computer
minds in the on-line community.
Scanning the various conference
rosters (EIES has hundreds of con-
(continued)
170 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
LeieviaeoAE
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 171
OVERVIEW
ferences on line at any one time, and
each conference maintains a separate
roster of members), the EIES "com-
munity" begins to read like a who's
who of the computer industry
ElES's many commands, their op-
tions, and the modifiers to the com-
mands seem endless. Someone has
said that even Turoff doesn't know all
the commands and the full capability
of the system anymore. That is
because so many people have helped
with the development, creating vari-
ous command sets in an effort to
build the system's efficiency.
The system offers help on line (even
a "Chinese menu" that allows you to
create personal subsets of EIES com-
mands, which you can rename to your
liking). If you need a quick command
fix, an ever-present "?" key reveals the
EIES Survival Guide (and a handy
piece of phosphor it is).
EIES is a curious mix of technical,
academic, and nonsense conferences
whose topics range from High-Level
Programming Techniques to Com-
puters in the Third World to Graffiti.
Rummaging around EIES, you
almost get the feeling that you're
some kind of electronic archaeologist.
Conferences that at one time virtual-
ly exploded with discussion com-
ments now lie dormant, the last en-
try dated, in one case, March 17,
1983. What happened to all those
hundreds of participants? A "dead"
conference is something of a cultural
phenomenon in the Information Age,
and EIES contains plenty of these
kind of conferences to explore.
In keeping with the pioneer spirit of
the system, a couple of EIES users
have been attempting to trace and
chronicle the vast electronic rivers
and tributaries of the world's research
networks (ARPANET. USENET. CSNET
MAILNET, and so on). In so doing
they are a kind of Lewis and Clark of
the Information Age. Because EIES
has access to the research networks
via a MAILNET gateway, users of EIES
have access to just about any research
or academic institution that has elec-
tronic messaging capability.
EIES has a real-time capability that
boils down to an electronic, person-
to-person exchange of one-line elec-
tronic messages. There are two
modes of sending a real-time mes-
sage. One is the "flash" method,
where the receiver is greeted with a
one-line blast of text on his or her
screen. This often causes (without too
much surprise) a reciprocal action,
and usually a message of like content
is broadcast to your CRT. This is all
done in a "semisynchronous" fashion.
In other words, both parties are send-
ing one-shot messages without really
making any kind of link between their
machines. If you want to engage in an
extended "chat" mode, EIES allows
this via its +LINK command. Using
+ LINK, two people can carry on a
conversation much faster, as the
+ LINK has actually "linked" their
machines via software.
Though EIES does have some short-
comings, there isn't a lot you can't do
on it. If you find something you can't
do. chances are someone is working
on the solution right now. The whole
system reminds me of draft horse: It
may be big and slow, but it will never
quit.
It s PARTI Time
The PARTICIPATE conferencing sys-
tem offered by PSI (Participation Sys-
tems Incorporated) is aptly nick-
named PARTI.
On line with PARTI you immediate-
ly sense that a kind of electronic party
is being carried on in the phosphor—
this is computer conferencing for the
masses. Talking to users (and using
the system itself), you get a feeling
that using PARTI really means "be-
longing" to PARTI.
C H. "Harry" Stevens, developer of
PARTI and president of PSI. is known
throughout the industry by a bit of on-
line folklore surrounding what has
become a personal trademark for
him— the Eskimo word "chimo," which
means "I'm your friend."
During a "name that newsletter"
contest for the EIES conferencing
system, Stevens suggested "Chimo"
(the same name used for a newslet-
ter he published as a consultant at
MIT). The name won and is a de facto
standard for PARTI on-line newsletters.
Stevens developed PARTI while
working on the EIES system.
Frustrated by the large amount of
chatty conferences on EIES, Stevens
began to develop a way to break a
large topic into "sections" through
what he calls "inquiry networking."
(Ironically, PARTI has evolved into the
ultimate chatty on-line system.)
Inquiry networking allows a con-
ference to have many different
branches. For example, a conference
titled Programming Languages might
have branches dealing with Ada,
Turbo Pascal, BASIC, and so on. Once
a conference has been organized.
anyone involved in the conference
can create a branch— which some-
times results in an unwieldy con-
ference structure (a branch con-
ference can have several branches
itself). Should this happen, the
original conference organizer can
choose to prune the conference by
deleting disruptive branches.
Creating a conference on PARTI is
as easy as expressing your personal
dogma. As a conference organizer
(creator) you are free to choose any
topic you wish. Conferences on PARTI
run from the esoteric (Meditation and
Heightened Sexual Awareness) to the
serious (such as the national headline-
grabbing conference that took place
after the 1983 downing of Korean Air
Lines Flight 007) and all topics in
between.
One unique aspect of PARTI is that
users play a major role in its ongoing
development. Originally just an over-
lay on the EIES system, PARTI first
went public (on the commercial infor-
mation utility The Source) with an
organizational structure that was the
result of suggestions and comments
made to Stevens by EIES users. Even
now, an ongoing conference on The
Source acts as a clearinghouse for
suggested improvements. Stevens
takes such suggestions into serious
consideration. The Suggestions con-
ference on The Source (which uses
PARTI version 3.4) led to the develop-
ment of the much-improved version
4.45.
PARTI lets you operate a flexible
range of on-line tools such as a
172 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
OVERVIEW
private, person-to-person message
system, searching a conference by a
keyword or phrase, on-line balloting,
and a person-to-person real-time mes-
saging capability. You can send a one-
line message in real time to any other
person using PARTI, to which they can
respond in like manner. This is not an
efficient method of real-time con-
ferencing, but it's good for "routing"
someone to a critical conference he
may have missed or for setting up
time to get together on a voice call.
The ability to create open or closed
conferences gives a conference
organizer the ability to tailor the
membership of any conference to his
or her specifications. A conference
can consist of as little as one person
(pretty boring, but you don't catch a
lot of flak about your opinions) to
literally thousands.
PARTI is not the easiest system to
use. It has many undocumented fea-
tures that can remain unknown until
you get your hands on a user's
manual. A manual is available from
PSI, but most public systems don't tell
you that, choosing instead to furnish
you with their version of a "cheat
sheet." Without the user's guide in
hand, you can build up a good deal
of frustration and a sizable bill. On-
line help is available, but it's only as
good as your latest question. Over-
coming the initial frustration, however,
is well worth the time (not to mention
the expense). Soon the frustration
turns to fun (or addiction, depending
on your self-discipline), and after a
while Chimo certainly seems an apt
{continued)
Computer Conferencing
and technology transfer
Computer conferencing is integral
to the information and tech-
nology transfer network being devel-
oped by the Industrial Technology In-
stitute (IT1) of Ann Arbor. Michigan, to
encourage the application of advanced
manufacturing technology (AMT) in the
United States.
AMT falls into the category of "pro-
grammable" manufacturing tech-
nology, which refers to manufacturing
technology that can be programmed
for one operation and then another. In
AMT, machines may or may not be in-
tegrated by a central computer, but
they usually work in tandem with other
programmable devices that minimize
human intervention in the production
process.
1TI is a not-for-profit corporation ini-
tiated in 1982 by the State of
Michigan's High Technology Task Force
to conduct basic research in the area
of automated manufacturing, develop
new techniques, and serve as a
technology transfer agent between
those who are familiar with AMT and
those who are not.
lb encourage the use of AMT, ITI
plans to use computer conferencing for
three areas. First, as a complement to
face-to-face seminars that address the
application and implementation of
specific technologies, computer con-
ferencing will be used to extend
seminars and training programs over
by Patrick L. Sweet
a period of time. Programs will be
marketed to the advanced manufactur-
ing community, including companies,
trade and professional associations,
academia. and government agencies.
ITI also anticipates the development
of technology-specific forums (e.g.. forums
on robotics, machine vision, or com-
puter-aided design). These will be of-
fered to the manufacturing community
at large or may be organized for
specific companies or users of a par-
ticular vendor's systems. A forum may
be designed as a user support group,
modeled after personal computer user
groups, or as a means of sharing cur-
rent research in an area of AMT or its
application.
ITI will also offer project-focused
communication services. Companies
about to deploy various technologies
or solve specific technological prob-
lems in different sites often establish
task forces to coordinate the effort.
Whether in the early stages of in-
vestigation or in the late stages of im-
plementation, tight communication be-
tween sites can enhance deployment
efforts. In addition, professional
associations responsible for develop-
ing industry standards may use com-
puter conferencing to coordinate
standards-development projects. Other
company- or organization-specific ser-
vices are planned.
ITI has organized a number of com-
puter conferences already. Its first,
"The Forum on Integrating Research in
Socio-Technical Systems," lasted six
months and was initiated primarily to
develop a research agenda for ITI's
Center for Social and Economic Issues.
With participants from industry,
government, and labor and academic
organizations, the conference proved
to be a valuable follow-up to a face-to-
face conference titled "Managing
Manufacturing Technologies Through
the 1990s," cosponsored by the Na-
tional Science Foundation. This initial
experience provided ITI with important
insight as to how to successfully
organize and run a six-month-long
"discussion." something that takes a
good deal of experience and motiva-
tion due to the unique characteristics
of computer conferencing.
Computer conferencing at ITI will
take a variety of forms and is becom-
ing an essential means for enhancing
discussion and information exchange
among those familiar with AMT and
those just becoming aware of its poten-
tials and implications. ITI's computer
conferencing network promises to be
a powerful tool for enhancing the
understanding and diffusion of ad-
vanced manufacturing technology.
Patrick L. Sweet (ITI, information Systems
Center. POB 1485, Ann Arbor. MI 48106)
is a research associate at ITI.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 173
OVERVIEW
motto for what is often called an im-
personal medium.
notepad: three-piece
Conferencing
NOTEPAD is the three-piece suit of
the conferencing world. This con-
ferencing system is a stripped-down,
easy-to-use, no-nonsense business
tool. Using NOTEPAD may remind
you of a corporate boardroom
meeting.
NOTEPAD feels less powerful than
some of the other commercial con-
ferencing systems, but this is because
of its inherent simplicity. The number
row of your keyboard (1-9) activates
the entire range of NOTEPAD com-
mands. A small three-page fold-out
brochure holds all the commands and
is written in straightforward English.
Computer Conferencing:
The Global Connection
As if in pain, the helicopter's jet
turbine engine screeched sharp-
ly, groaned once, and died. Now, sil-
houetted against the Himalayan moun-
tains, the quiet helicopter began to
spiral slowly toward the ground. The
passengers, a group of United Nations
doctors, looked around furtively as the
pilot, his jaw clenched, maneuvered
the paralyzed bird down in tight circles.
After a silent eternity, the pilot
brought the craft down just outside of
Biratnagar in the remote terrain of
Nepal.
"What's wrong?" a passenger asked
"Nothing much,'' the pilot replied
But we'll need to file a spare parts
order: Engine. One.' "
Under almost any other circum-
stances, a crippled aircraft sitting on
the ground in one of the most remote
places on earth would rust long before
a replacement engine could be
located, airlifted in. and installed. But
thanks to the then-new technology of
computer conferencing, a worldwide
spare parts order" was filled swiftly,
and the chopper flew out of Nepal only
days later.
Here is how computer conferencing
rescued that helicopter and the U.N.
project:
The helicopter was on loan from
Evergreen Helicopter Company in
McMinville. Oregon. The only "spare"
jet engine was in France, at Allouette
Helicopter Company. Four additional
organizations were involved in orches-
trating the "spare parts order": the
United Nations office in New York, the
government of Nepal, the Vvbrld Health
Organization regional office in New
Delhi, and a Michigan-based interna-
by Lawrence B. Brilliant
tional charity, the Seva Foundation,
which was funding the project.
Using a computer conferencing sys-
tem to which several companies in the
aerospace industry subscribe, an "elec-
tronic forum" was quickly convened.
Despite the differences in time zones,
computer terminals, and geographical
locations, the participants were able to
take part in an on-line meeting in which
they could read the views and posi-
tions of all the other organizations.
They quickly reached a consensus on
who would pay for the replacement
engine, how it would be shipped into
Kathmandu, how customs duties might
be waived on the new engine, how it
could be trucked into the remote land-
ing site, and what would be done with
the damaged but still valuable original
engine. Telephone tag. internal organ-
izational hierarchies, and diplomatic
protocols were dealt with easily, and
the meeting lasted less than a day.
This event illustrates a lesson for
anyone trying to get things done in
complicated organizations. When
speed and effectiveness are the issue,
nothing surpasses electronic forums
for disseminating information to all
concerned and making decisions
rapidly.
Today, the computer conferencing
revolution is burgeoning, due to three
factors: (I) The enormous investment
made in the international telephone
system in past decades has provided
us all with relatively low-cost commu-
nication lines. (2) Technology has
brought the cost of personal com-
puters within the reach of virtually
everyone in modern industrial soci-
eties. (3) Increasingly sophisticated
software enables individuals to take
part in computer conferencing at home
and gives them the option of renting
time on worldwide networks.
Until now, organizational culture has
been determined by a critical mass of
intelligent people in proximity to each
other. This has created towns, univer-
sities, and tall office buildings. It is why
we have Bell Labs and Xerox PARC.
With the advent of electronic
meeting technology, the thrust of
civilization can now occur without the
factor of proximity The synergism and
excitement of a critical mass of in-
telligent people will remain a factor,
but now they need not live or work
close to each other. For the first time,
engineers in San Diego, New York,
Rome, and Hong Kong, all members of
a special-interest group, can meet on
line all year without ever seeing each
other Perhaps, with this technology, we
are seeing the realization of Marshall
McLuhan's "global village."
The benefits to business are obvious:
Decision making is improved by bring-
ing the best minds of a company
together without restrictions of time
and location: participants can produc-
tively enter a meeting after organizing
ideas: they can discuss many different
subjects in one meeting without the
confusion that sometimes occurs in
traditional meetings: immediate
printed records of the discussion are
available: and spreadsheets, databases,
and other productivity tools can be
entered into the meeting. Used wise-
ly, the result is increased efficiency.
Computer meeting systems can make
a horizontal cut through the standard
vertical organizational chart. This
174 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
OVERVIEW
NOTEPAD provides a combination
of real-time and stored-message con-
ferencing to build the contents of a
message base. A real-time computer
conference discussion can consist of
up to 32 people on line at the same
time. Messages are stored sequential-
distributed electronic organization
(DEO), a horizontal stratification of per-
sonnel within a company, results in a
new and higher quality of interactive
group process and organizational deci-
sion making. For the first time, through
computer conferencing, we will see
communication exchanged on a con-
tinuous basis between all the depart-
ment managers, all the engineers, and
all the supervisors, no matter where
they are located. These horizontal
levels of communication will remove
previous barriers of time and location,
allowing unlimited communication in
a thoughtful, productive process.
The Seva Foundation, a nonprofit in-
ternational charity, is a good example
of a DEO. It uses electronic meeting
systems to allocate its money and make
other business decisions. The board of
directors meeting lasts all year, and, as
a result, the structure of the organiza-
tion has changed. The executive com-
mittee, whose members once flew
from various corners of the world for
meetings four times a year, has been
abolished. Now the entire board is in-
timately involved on a day-to-day basis
with operational decisions, though the
members live all over the world.
The impact of these horizontal links
within society is still difficult to foresee,
but from this free exchange of ideas
and information will come new solu-
tions to old problems.
Lawrence B. Brilliant, M.D., M.P.HI., is the
founder and chairman of Network Technologies
International Inc. (NETI), which markets
eForum and docuForum electronic meeting
systems. He can be reached at NETI, 315 West
Huron, Suite 320, Ann Arbor, MI 48103.
ly as they are entered by each in-
dividual. These real-time messages
then become part of the complete
stored-message base. This storing of
real-time conference messages allows
you to arrive late to a conference and
quickly review all that has been said
up to the time you logged on. You can
even miss the entire real-time conver-
sation, log on later, review the entire
discussion, and add comments, which
the others will see the next time they
log on.
A Service option lets anyone in the
conference create a survey ("How can
we increase sales in Outer
Mongolia?") or post an on-line ballot
("Should we go public with our
stock?"). Members of the conference
respond in essay fashion to a general
survey or by "voting" (yes, no, or
abstain) on ballot questions. The
creator of the survey or ballot can
compile the results with two key-
strokes and send the results to the
rest of the conference members.
Conference contents can be
searched by keywords or phrases,
time, dates, or person— even during a
real-time conference.
NOTEPAD is marketed through In-
foMedia, which is headed by com-
puter conferencing pioneer Jacques
Vallee. Vallee's influence on the con-
cept and personality of NOTEPAD is
obvious. A longtime advocate of the
importance of putting the human fac-
tor in computer conferencing, Vallee
has succeeded in transferring that
human factor into the environment of
person-computer-person communica-
tions. NOTEPAD operates under a
general philosophy of "people first,
then machines." This attitude leads to
the phrase "transparent technology,"
which InfoMedia uses to describe the
NOTEPAD conferencing environment.
NOTEPAD is used by corporations
like Bechtel to coordinate worldwide
construction projects and by govern-
mental bodies such as NASA, which
is running an ongoing international
research and development con-
ference. For this reason, most of the
conferences are closed, meaning the
contents are known only to the par-
ticipating members. Even NOTEPAD'S
support and service team does not
have access to conference contents,
unless it is specifically invited. This
high degree of confidentiality appeals
to businesses needing to discuss sen-
sitive issues while taking full advan-
tage of computer conferencing tech-
nology. As a consequence, this is not
a system to which you would sub-
scribe. Most users are involved in
specific projects, and the sponsoring
organization picks up the tab. If you're
lucky enough to use NOTEPAD, you'll
find what that ambiguous phrase
"user-friendly" is really all about.
eForum: New Kid
on the Block
Chronologically speaking, eForum
from Network Technologies Interna-
tional Inc. (NETI) is the youngest
member of the computer conferenc-
ing family. Being the youngest,
eForum has some big shoes to fill, but
it appears to be off to a good start.
NETI has a long history of working
with computer conferencing, and that
experience shows in the features of
eForum. Drawing heavily on the elec-
tronic meeting theme, eForum is
another attempt to draw the business
meeting into the Information Age. To
achieve this goal NETI has pumped
eForum full of user-friendliness while
bypassing most of the "computerese"
that makes boardroom executives
cringe behind walnut desks. The com-
pany has also developed a slick docu-
mentation manual and a slick adver-
tising program. If you want a com-
puter conferencing system that "feels"
like it belongs in a BMW or on the
cover of the Wall Street journal, this is
the package.
The documentation is by far the
most complete and accurate (though
not error-free) that I received during
my electronic journey of conferencing
systems. To a novice user, documen-
tation is priceless. NETI gets high
marks for its efforts in this area. In-
cluded in the documentation is an ex-
cellent discussion of the "how to's" of
electronic meeting management and
organization (no simple task, I assure
you).
[continued]
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 175
OVERVIEW
eForum provides what it calls an
eForum WS software package (the WS
stands for workstation) that is com-
patible with IBM PCs and their clones.
The WS software handles communi-
cations, word processing, printer con-
trol, and uploading/downloading pro-
cedures by interfacing with eForum's
command set. The software uses an
abundance of windows, similar to to-
day's desktop utilities programs,
although you don't have to have this
special software to interact with
eForum.
When 1 first used the system, 1 ran
my workhorse engine: a pre-1984
Kay pro 2, a Prometheus 1200-bps
(bits per second) modem, and MEX
public-domain software. This setup
worked flawlessly (though it was like
eating plain yogurt after running the
WS software).
NETI bills eForum as the "electronic
meeting manager." True to its claim,
it is just that: a meeting manager, with
no electronic mail function available.
One way around this is to organize a
closed meeting between two people
or among a small group. (I've been
told that NETI is close to releasing an
integrated E-mail program.)
As in other systems, comments
entered in a conference are readable
by anyone who has access to the con-
ference. There are four different levels
of security you can assign to a con-
ference. The security levels range
from Open (which even the corporate
janitors could contribute to if they had
access to a micro) to something
bordering on paranoiac— a closed,
invitation-only conference that re-
quires a special code word to enter.
Using eForum reminds me of a for-
mal business meeting: this is indeed
a "structured" system. Major discus-
sion topics (such as Software Devel-
opment) are listed as Meetings. These
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meetings can then be divided into
various discussions (such as User
Documentation). Anyone involved in
the meeting can create a new discus-
sion (bring up a new topic). In these
different discussions you can read
others' comments and contribute
your own views. A particularly
intriguing command is listed as punt
(as in "when all else fails— punt."). Punt
does exactly what you might expect:
it logs you out of the system and
returns you to the log-in sequence,
giving you a second chance at a par-
ticular on-line session. (If only NETI
could transfer the electronic punt
command to face-to-face business
meetings!)
If a discussion runs its course, it can
be tabled, which removes it from the
general meeting structure. This "self-
cleaning" keeps the main topic man-
ageable and creates an atmosphere
of a face-to-face meeting where dis-
cussions are started, talked through,
and then dropped.
With the growing move to regional
information networks (like the Whole
Earth's WELL and NETI's own M-
NET), eForum could be a package
that springboards this new breed of
network into prominence. And while
eForum is not yet powerful enough to
handle the needs of a Fortune 500
company, a large corporation might
do well to have several eForums avail-
able for its smaller intercorporation
divisions.
Putting BYTE
into Conferencing
Alastair J. W. Mayer leads a charmed
life. Born in London, England, in
December of 1952, he just missed the
infamous "Killer Fog." After several
careers as a country club kitchen
helper, typist, tobacco planter, and
bartender, Mayer became terminally
involved in the computing field dur-
ing a 1974 Computing 101 course,
which forced him to learn APL. He
says, simply, "I was hooked."
Winding his way through various
"rent-a-programmer" jobs, Mayer
ended up at Concordia University in
Montreal. After revamping a
{continued)
176 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 1 10
3
An Interactive Digital Telecommunications System
Sends Photos, Graphics, Text and Voice
Makes Communicating and Decision-making Easier, Faster
Now you can do it. Dial up your home
office, client or service organization and
have a two-way conversation with
pictures, graphics and text to make
your communications more effective
and immediate. Point to areas of
interest, draw in changes, transfer a
file, exchange typed messages or
switch to voice mode and hold a two-
way conversation.
Easy to use PhotoMail is the system
designed for organizations that must
send complex information between
offices or client facilities.
Applications abound in business,
design and engineering, medicine,
service and maintenance, insurance,
security, access control, law
enforcement, news and wire services.
PhotoMail is a complete hardware/
software family of products that lets you
send and receive pictures over ordinary
phone lines to remote computers.
Pictures of people, diagrams, text,
houses, construction sites, property
damage — anything you can capture
with standard video equipment can be
displayed and transmitted at resolutions
up to 640 x 400 x 16 levels of gray.
PhotoMail supports disk storage and
hard copy printout and file conversion
for "electronic mail" systems.
Simple to Use
1. Select a picture from disk file or
capture it with a video camera. 2. Dial
your party. 3. When the party answers,
PhotoMail automatically links the two
computer systems. 4. You can now
discuss your business — using a
"mouse" to select the functions you
desire: communicating, filing, capturing,
edit screen and send image.
Subfunctions "pop-up" for additional
instructions.
Configure Your Own— You may already have some
of the components . . .
Component
PhotoMail
Package
PhotoMail
System
PhotoMail
Workstation
Expansion
Slots Used
-
Computer (IBM PC. XT. AT)
User
User
— ■
Monitor
User
—
["■
GA-1000 Graphics Adapter
•
1 Full
fM
PC-EYE Video Capture
•
1 Full
vM
PhotoMail Software
•
—
MiM
Modem
User
•••
Video Camera
User
-
•: n
Pointing Device
•
1/2 Slot
»-
ScreenMaster
•
1/2 Slot
Camera Accessory Kit
User
—
1
Expansion Chassis
(8-Slot)
User
•
—
1 Full Slot
in host for
interlace
1
Printer
User
User
User
1 Slot for
printer adapter
User- Supplied by user
• • Supplied with PhotoMail
••• - 1 full slot (or plug-in board modem. 1 /2 slot for external modems which connect to an asynchronous
communications adapter board.
CHORUS
Write for Information including
applications, operation, system
configuration and specifications
or call 1-800-OCHORUS.
Inquiry 58
Chorus Data Systems, Inc., 6 Continental Blvd., P.O. Box 370, Merrimack, New Hampshire 03054
OVERVIEW
documentation system for the
Academic Computer Services depart-
ment, he wrote his own mainframe-
based text formatter called FORMAL.
His intensive research and develop-
ment work with the Interactive Graph-
ics Lab led him to develop VAX-
teroids, a mainframe color-and-sound
version of the popular Asteroids
video game. After VAXteroids was
written, Mayer searched for a real
challenge and ended up at Canada's
University of Guelph working on
CoSy.
CoSy, a blend of many different
computer conferencing systems,
echoes its developer's own back-
ground. CoSy is a type of academic
system (like EIES), while maintaining
a sense of electronic community (like
PARTI). BYTE has chosen CoSy as the
software that BIX (the BYTE Informa-
tion Exchange) will run under.
CoSy is a deliberately ambiguous
acronym that originally stood for Con-
ferencing System, Collaboration Sys-
tem, Conversational Syncretism, and
even multilingual names like Conduite
a Synergie (conduit to synergy). This
identification crisis sums up CoSy well
and is also the reason it functions well
in a computer conferencing environ-
ment; it can be anything you want it
to be.
The CoSy conferencing system at
Guelph has officially been on line
since April of 1983. "We started
charging people real money for the
service in the fall of 1984.'' said Mayer.
The University provides individual ac-
counts on CoSy, on a per-fee basis. To
date there are 400 off-site users in 28
different countries using CoSy,
notably by organizations that are geo-
graphically dispersed.
CoSy runs on any machine that will
handle UNIX. Mayer says the software
was demonstrated successfully on an
Subscription Problems?
We want to help!
// you have a problem with your BYTE subscription,
write us with the details. We'll do our best to set it
right. But we must have the name, address, and zip
of the subscription (new and old address, ii it's a
change of address). If the problem involves a
payment, be sure to include copies of the credit card
statement, or front and back of cancelled checks.
Include a "business hours" phone number if possible.
BYTE
Subscriber Service
P.O. Box 328
Hancock, NH 03449
AT&T UNIX PC with 1 megabyte of
RAM (random-access read/write
memory) and a 10-megabyte hard
disk (with obvious limitations regard-
ing simultaneous users and number
and size of conferences).
CoSy supports electronic mail and
both open and closed conferencing.
In addition, a function called Conver-
sation lets users form an informal con-
ference of invited members. Conver-
sation looks like regular E-mail, but
when you enter comments, each per-
son on the "guest list" is sent a copy
of the message. This facilitates quick
conferences without going through
the formalities of setting up an official
conference.
CoSy has numerous on-line help
functions and even a "guided tour"
that allows you to learn enough com-
mands in 10 minutes to handle 80
percent of all the functions you will
ever use on CoSy.
To make CoSy respond, you only
have to hit a carriage return. If there
are unread messages waiting for you,
CoSy automatically displays them. If
you are ever in doubt about what to
do in CoSy, you just hit a carriage
return, and something will pop onto
your screen. If it's not an unread
message, then it will be a list of ex-
ecutable options. The CoSy installed
at Guelph has links to the BITNET net-
work and can therefore reach any
number of research networks. (As
pointed out earlier, figuring out these
research networks is something of a
black art, but the potential is there.)
If you want to take a shot at on-line
"exploration," you can subscribe to
CoSy (at a much more reasonable fee
than EIES) and begin traveling the
tributaries of the electronic commu-
nity.
According to Mayer, there is talk
about linking the Swedish COM with
CoSy, which would allow parallel con-
ferencing between the two systems to
become a reality.
CoSy represents a trend in com-
puter conferencing that is highly
desirable— portability from a main-
frame environment to the micro level.
This evolution could well lead to a
[continued)
178 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Famous Canon National Brand
10" Carriage
HI-SPEED
15" Carriage
PRINTER SALE
Below Wholesale Cost Prices!!!
• 160-180 CPS • High Speed Dot Matrix • Letter Quality Modes
* Tractor/Friction • 4 Character Styles * Business or Personal
* Programmable Characters * 2K Buffer * 15 Day Free Trial
• ONE YEAR IMMEDIATE REPLACEMENT WARRANTY
Check these features & prices
10" Printer
List $499.00
$19Q00
Print Sample
SUPER GRAPHICS!
15" Print Br uses 10" and 15" paper
Call for Volume Discounts
15" Printer
List $699.00
*** NLQ PICA
PRINTING ***
CANON IMPACT
MATRIX PRINTER
CANC
CANON
IMPACT
I^IATFt
$ 279 00
Call for Volume Discounts
(IBM — Commodore )
Printing Method
Impact dot matrix
Printing Speed
160 CPS at standard character printing
27 CPS at NLQ character printing
Printing Direction
Text Mode — Bi-directional
Graphic Mode - Unidirectional
Print Head Life
100 million characters
Printing Characters
Standard 11x9 dot matrix
NLQ 23 x 18 dot matrix
Character size: 2 x 2.42 mm (standard)
Character set: Full ASCII character set (96),
32 special European characters
SPECIFICATIONS
Down Loading
11 x 9 dot matrix: NLQ 23 x 18 dot matrix
optional
Print Buffer
2K-byte utility buffer
Image Printing
Image Data: Vertical 8, 9 and/or 16 dot
Resolution: Horizontal 60 dots/inch
Horizontal 120 dots/inch (double density)
Horizontal 240 dots/inch (quadruple density)
Interface
8-bit parallel interface (Centronics type)
Paper
Plain paper, Roll paper, Single sheet,
Fanfold, Multipart paper: max. 3 sheets
(original plus 2)
Interfaces
(Apple — Atari — Etc. )
Ink Ribbon Cartridge
Ribbon Life: 3 million characters/cartridge
Maximum Number of Characters
Standard: 10 cpi 80 cpl
Enlarged. 5 cpi 40 cpl
Condensed: 17.1 cpi 136 cpl
Condensed enlarged: 8.5 cpi 68 cpl
Elite: 12 cpi 96 cpl
Elite enlarged: 6 cpi 48 cpl
NLQ pica: 10 cpi 80 cpl
NLQ pica enlarged: 5 cpi 40 cpl
Physical Dimensions
10": Size: 15 3 /4"x 12 5/8" x 4 3/8"
Weight: 17.6 lbs.
15": Size: 23'/!" x 134/5" x 5 1/10"
Weight: 26.4 lbs.
Cartridge Ribbon. List $29.95. Sale $14.95.
IBM $89.00
Apple $59.00
Atari $59.00
Commodore $39.00
Add $13.50 ($15.00 for 15" Printers) for shipping, handling and
insurance. Illinois residents please add 6% tax. Add $20.00 for
CANADA, PUERTO RICO. HAWAII, ALASKA, APO-FPO orders.
Canadian orders must be in U.S. dollars. WE DO NOT EXPORT TO
OTHER COUNTRIES, EXCEPT CANADA.
Enclose Cashiers Check, Money Order or Personal Check. Allow 14
days for delivery, 2 to 7 days for phone orders, 1 day express mail !
VISA — MASTER CARD — COD No COD. to Canada, APO-FPO
Inquiry 298
We Love Our Customers
22292 N. Pepper Rd., Barrington, Illinois 60010
312/382-5244 to order
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 179
OVERVIEW
vast network of high-powered con-
ferencing systems dotting the phos-
phorescent landscape, in much the
same way single-user bulletin-board
systems do today.
Visionary Conferencing
The conferencing system AUGMENT
can trace its roots to a 1945 Atlantic
Monthly article by Vannevar Bush
called "As We May Think." In the arti-
cle, Bush described the "memex," a
personal workstation that includes
concepts such as associative indexing,
windowing, and database trails. Draw-
ing heavily on the concepts of Bush's
article, Doug Engelbart began think-
ing of ways to "augment" the office
work environment. As a result of early
work in workspace augmentation,
Engelbart developed a system called
NLS.
Engelbart is often overlooked in the
general history of the development of
computer conferencing. In the early
1960s he wrote about the type of
computer system that has evolved
into modern-day computer confer-
encing. The focus of NLS was to
create a complete "knowledge work-
shop" for the user, not just an isolated
set of tools. The early NLS system was
so impressive that in 1978 Tymshare
took over the rights to the NLS system
and now markets it commercially as
AUGMENT.
AUGMENT allows you to navigate
through what it calls an "information
space," using several on-line tools. In
a computer conference you can dis-
play text in several ways— by subject
headers only, by controlling the
number of lines displayed on screen
at a given time, or by presenting text
only from a certain person. The sys-
tem also allows the screen to be
divided horizontally or vertically into
eight rectangular windows for display-
ing different sections of a text or
separate sections of different texts.
This use of a split-screen concept was
an early forerunner of windowing so
common today.
The manipulation of text on AUG-
MENT allows you to delve into what
Engelbart terms "hypertext." In deal-
ing with your "information space," you
can jump to previously marked pas-
sages, to adjacent passages, to a
specified point in the text, or to a
point that satisfies a certain test. AUG-
MENT also lets users jump to other
documents that are referenced in the
current on-screen text. The effect is a
type of "word window."
Beyond the normal aspect of stor-
ing written notes in a hierarchical
fashion, with subsequent comments
being added by other members of the
computer conference, AUGMENT
adds a fascinating dimension to the
(continued)
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180 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 2
"SwyftCard" is an incredible
addition to my AppleTfe?
Steve Wozniak,
This new $89-95 plug-in card gives you Apple He user
an amazingly easy, blindingly fast way to
write, file, communicate and calculate.
You've never seen an Apple He do
word processing, filing, communicating
and calculating the way it does with a
SwyftCard.
Steve Wozniak calls it revolutionary,
adding "If I had thought of the SwyftCard
while creating the Apple II, I would have
built it in." Fomenting revolutions comes
naturally to SwyftCard inventor Jef Raskin,
whose previous efforts to make comput-
ers simple and useful include creating the
Macintosh™ project at Apple.
SwyftCard creator Jef Raskin and
Apple II creator Steve Wozniak
SwyftCard transforms the Apple
lie into the computer it ought
to be.
The SwyftCard creates a 40K-byte work-
ing space, or "universe," capable of hold-
ing about 20 pages of single-spaced text.
The universe accepts whatever you put in
— text, numbers and data, in any form
you choose, without you having to switch
programs or modes.
Throughout your workday, you can
enter information into the universe in
free form: a report, names and addresses,
daily to-do list, new telephone numbers,
client list — anything you're working on.
A universe resides in memory while
you are using it, and when you are done
you save it to a disk. An unlimited number
of universes can be created, each kept on
a separate disk.
The secret to working in a SwyftCard
universe is the patent-pending cursor. It
works faster than control keys or a mouse,
and doesn't make you take your hands off
the keyboard.
SwyftCard is a better solution to your
day in, day out word processing and data
management needs. It is faster, easier and
more useful.
How much faster is SwyftCard?
From a power-off start, SwyftCard loads
a universe and displays exactly where you
were last working in just six seconds,
automatically, with no commands.
SwyftCard finds and displays any piece
of information in your universe in less
than 300 milliseconds.
SwyftCard saves an entire universe to a
disk in just eight seconds, including auto-
matic formatting if necessary.
How much easier is SwyftCard?
For all it does, SwyftCard uses only
seven commands. And each is available
immediately by pressing a single key
once.
To stan using SwyftCard, simply plug
the card into Slot 3 (which most other
cards can't use), turn the Apple He power
on, wait six seconds and begin typing.
To use an Apple program, just load it
in; SwyftCard turns itself off and won't
interfere.
How much more does
SwyftCard do?
SwyftCard communicates with data ser-
vices without you having to learn their
editors, and lets you directly edit informa-
tion you bring in without special com-
mands or file transfers.
SwyftCard is great with numbers,
performing calculations — including
scientific work — anywhere in your
universe.
Using the SwyftCard-ProDos utility disk,
which is included, you can transfer infor-
mation developed in SwyftCard to other
programs, and vice versa.
SwyftCard is not a spreadsheet, nor will
it do everything for everybody. But no
other system delivers the common sense
utility of SwyftCard.
Of course, SwyftCard comes with a
complete manual and an on-screen
tutorial.
Try SwyftCard for 30 days.
Everyone we've shown this ad to has
said SwyftCard sounds too good to be
true. Maybe you feel that way too. But
everyone we've then shown the SwyftCard
to says it's better than the ad claims. So
we want you to try it at our risk.
If we sent you product literature or
tried to answer your questions by phone,
we would just repeat this ad. The only
practical way to find out if SwyftCard will
help you is to accept the 30-day, no ques-
tions asked, money-back trial offer. If you
don't like your SwyftCard, return it within
30 days and we'll send you your money
back.
To order, call us at:
800-982-5600 in the U.S.
800-562-7400 in Calif.
Computer system requirements
Apple He, regular or extended 80-column
card, 80-column monitor, one disk drive
with controller. For communications: 300
or 1200 baud modems and Super Serial
card.- To transfer data between SwyftCard
and Apple programs with ProDos utility:
extended 80-column card or two drives. To
print: any Apple, Brother, C.Itoh, Cen-
tronics, Epson, HP, NEC, Okidata, Panasonic,
Qume, Star, Toshiba and most other
printers.
Apple is a registered trademark of and Macintosh is
a trademark licensed to Apple Computer Inc.
Order SwyftCard on a 30-day money-
back trial offer. Call toll-free:
800-982-5600 in the U.S.,
800-562-7400 in California. Or use
this coupon.
Name
Address
City
State
Phone (
Zip.
-)-
Send-
SwyftCards at $89.95* plus $3.50 U.S.
or $10.00 foreign shipping and handling each,
totalling $ 1 prefer to pay as follows:
D My check or money order is enclosed (payable to
Information Appliance Inc.)
□ Please bill my credit card account:
□ Visa □ MasterCard
Card #
Expiration Date
Signature
•California residents please add $6.30 for sales tax.
Mail to: Information Appliance Inc., 530 University
Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301.
Information
Appliance Inc.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 181
OVERVIEW
real-time computer conference. Users
can link their terminals to allow for a
common screen information display,
with each person being able to con-
trol a pointer on the screen and able
to call up related files on different
windows.
In Engelbart's own words, AUG-
MENT "permits a user to call an on-
line conference of two or more
people, view and edit files, add and
remove conferees, pass the gavel, and
transparently connect to other
machines."
Many of the concepts displayed in
Engelbart's work with AUGMENT are
being researched by computer con-
ferencing developers today. The idea
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of a knowledge workshop goes
beyond the basic needs of a com-
puterized meeting room. It appears,
however, that the types of concepts
AUGMENT displays are still ahead of
its time.
GENIE: Quill and Ink It Ain t
Stephen Heitmann, developer of the
GENIE conferencing system, must
have been a medieval monk in his
past life. There is no other explana-
tion for GENlE's highly flexible text-
processing capabilities. Only a monk
that had spent his entire life hand let-
tering with quill and ink could have
turned all his frustrations into fan-
tasies by creating a computer con-
ferencing system with the capabilities
of GENIE, which must have taken hard
work, late hours, and a natural
creative ability.
The first thing that hits you about
GENIE is the many ways it handles
text. Entering comments into a con-
ference is handled in a standard way.
You enter the comments into a
scratchpad, and then the contents of
your scratchpad are entered into the
conference. That's where the standard
procedure ends.
While participating in an on-line
conference, you will sooner or later
enter a message you wish you could
take back, such as one written while
you were mad or half asleep. Most
conferencing systems allow you, as
author, to delete a message if you
choose. Revising the message might
be preferable, but on most systems
your options are to delete or suffer
the consequences (usually an elec-
tronic mailbox stuffed with comments
that don't exactly resemble fan mail).
GENIE solves this all-or-nothing prob-
lem by letting you revise messages.
You can even authorize "editing
rights" to other members of the
conference.
An example of this "many editors"
function would be when issuing a
general request for information. In-
stead of having everyone who replies
to your message create separate en-
tries in the conference, each person
could append his or her information
{continued)
182 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 361
in
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All too often, brand-name CPUs are "bundled"
with mediocre peripherals — a practice that makes
for profitable sales, but does nothing for the
system's performance.
In Japan, where most computer peripherals are
actually built, NEC is the largest personal computer
company— by far. And NEC didn't make it to first
place by offering second rate peripherals.
The monitors with
the broadcast video heritage.
While dozens of companies market display
monitors, only a handful possess the tube
technology and manufacturing capability to actually
build them. NEC is one of the few. In fact, NEC's
complete line of color and monochrome monitors
reflects the professional and broadcast video
expertise that twice earned NEC Emmy Awards
from the National Academy of Television Arts &
Sciences.
Winning the printer race
takes both speed and endurance.
Ask people who really know about printers, and
they'll tell you that NEC builds the best. They may
also point out that NEC builds printers for other
computer companies. And if you ask them to
choose one word to sum up what makes NEC
printers stand out, it will probably be "reliable." This
is why NEC has become the printer of choice for the
most demanding installations.
So before you buy a peripheral from any name
company, make sure the company puts more into
the peripheral than just its name.
PC-PR105A IBM PC PLUG COMPATIBLE
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312-228-5900
Inquiry 263
OVERVIEW
CONFER can
broadcast notices,
called bulletins.
onto your first request. In the end. you
have a single message that amounts
to a minidatabase of responses.
GENIE allows the author of a mes-
sage to place certain locks on the text.
You can stop anyone from copying a
note you wrote and placing it some-
where else in the system. This hinders
the "leaking" or mass distribution of
critical information. (Of course, if
someone downloaded the message
to disk, he could upload it anywhere
he desired.)
Who uses GENIE? 1 don't know,
since its user base is proprietary. (I am
sworn by a phosphor oath not to
reveal the system 1 used to review
GENIE.) I was told that the target
market for GENIE is the scientific/engi-
neering (read "research and develop-
ment") community. That didn't make
sense when I first heard it, but after
using GENIE I see why. The science
and engineering fields create an enor-
mous amount of papers that need
constant revision.
CONFER: Think Tank
Without Walls
CONFER is a computer conferencing
system developed by Bob Parnes that
resides on a mainframe somewhere
on the campus of Wayne State Univer-
sity in Detroit. Hewlett-Packard chose
to license CONFER for its own use
and now has an effective way to elec-
tronically link its employees, who are
geographically dispersed among 100
major corporate divisions. HP's cor-
porate "suits" have hailed CONFER as
"the best thing on the market for
distributed meetings." Meanwhile, the
Army's Training and Doctrine Com-
mand uses CONFER for its "think tank
without walls," called The Delta Task
Force. The Independent Investor's
Forum caters to investors with $5000
to $10,000 and dispenses advice to its
subscribers via CONFER.
In operation since 1975. CONFER is
a greenhouse for various think tanks
and free thinkers. If ever a system
could create a feeling of excitement,
CONFER is the one. Bouncing around
the various CONFER conferences, I
was amazed at the level of "idea pro-
jection" taking place. This is due in
part to the structure of the software.
The structure of CONFER and the
philosophy behind it are based on
"information mapping." This type of
system, according to Robert E. Horn's
book, How to Write Information Mapping
(Information Resources Inc., 1982), in-
cludes the following principles and
procedures:
• identifying
• categorizing
• interrelating
• sequencing
• presenting
CONFER follows these ideas in
"mapping out" the way it handles
computer conferencing.
CONFER differs from other con-
ferencing systems in that its con-
ferences are more circular than
branching. A conference is described as
"the basic social structure" of CON-
FER. Major topics of discussion within
a conference are called items. Each
item relates to the general conference
theme. If you want to comment on a
particular item, your comments are
logged as responses, which are short,
concise points of view or pieces of ad-
ditional information relating to the
item. Responses must be short and to
the point because they are limited to
1 500 characters (about 24 lines of
text). If new ideas evolve from the
responses to items, additional items
can be entered into the conference.
From what I saw, an incredible
amount of discussion can take place
under a major topic without straying
from the general theme. Contributing
to the overall creative force of CON-
FER is the ability to create an agenda
for each conference.
The agenda function of CONFER
allows you to digest a conference by
grouping items under a single topic.
For example, a conference titled Pro-
ductivity may have 1 5 items relating
to different aspects of human rela-
tions. In your agenda you can create
the heading Human Relations and
then cross-reference all the items
relating to the subject. This gives you
a powerful information-management
tool. Since everyone interprets infor-
mation in different ways, each person
can create an agenda according to his
or her personal perspective (or if you
find someone who thinks along the
same lines, you can share agendas).
CONFER can broadcast notices,
which it calls bulletins. Bulletins can be
sent to all members of a certain con-
ference, informing them of activities
or pieces of information. Additional-
ly, bulletins can be time-released, so
that you can create a bulletin on May
8 and instruct CONFER to broadcast
it on May 30. (You can do the same
thing personally, by sending yourself
personal bulletins called notes, which
come in handy for reminding you of
important dates or activities sched-
uled in advance.)
Private correspondence is handled
through the sending of messages.
Messages function like a standard
E-mail system.
CONFER is also the Ferrari of com-
puter conferencing. This software re-
sponds quickly to all commands, in-
cluding those calling for keyword
searches of an entire conference data-
base. Until you've been "under the
clock." knowing that each tick-tick-tick
is literally being measured in green-
backs, you can't appreciate a respon-
sive system.
The most impressive feedback I
received on CONFER was this user's
statement: "When using CONFER,
people don't think of themselves as
'subscribing to' a system: they feel like
members of a community."
Choosing a System
How do you choose a conferencing
system? The best way is to try out the
various systems for yourself. All the
companies marketing these systems
are more than willing to let you test-
drive their systems. After spending
some time with each one, you'll know
which suits your needs best. It will be
the one that "feels" right. ■
184 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 8 — ►
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186 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 198
COMPUTER CONFERENCING
CONFERENCING
STANDARDS
by Jacob Palme
The search for a universal
conferencing standard continues
USERS OF A SINGLE computer con-
ferencing system who communicate
only with people who use the same
computer have little need for stan-
dards. The need for standards arises
when a user wants to communicate
with people on several different com-
puters or wants to connect a personal
computer to a conferencing system.
If two different machines are to
communicate, a standard for commu-
nication between them is needed. In
computer conferencing, this could be
either the interconnection of personal
computers with multiuser conferenc-
ing systems or communication be-
tween several multiuser conferencing
systems. Such a standard need not
prescribe the internal functions, struc-
turing, or user interface of the con-
nected systems. The standard only
has to prescribe the interconnection
between the systems.
It is easier to develop a standard if
you have some idea of the structure
of the systems to be interconnected.
Thus, standards are often based on
models of the internal structure of the
systems to be interconnected. The ex-
istence of such a model does not
mean that only systems structured ac-
cording to the model can be intercon-
nected. A model that is used to
develop standards and that does not
exactly agree with existing systems is
called an abstract model. To connect a
system whose internal structure is
somewhat different from the model
requires some mapping between the
model and the real system in the in-
terconnection software.
Today, many people are forced to
keep accounts in several different con-
ferencing and message systems. A
comprehensive standard for intercon-
nections might allow them to have an
account in only one system and get
all their information through this
system from conferences and people
in other systems. They would then
have to connect to only one system
and learn only one user interface.
Group Communication
Computer conferencing is a tool for
communication within a group of
people and provides an environment
similar to task groups, discussion
groups, and so on. A typical com-
puter conferencing system consists of
a number of conferences, each of
which has a set of members and a se-
quence of messages.
Usually, the system stores informa-
tion about how far every member has
read in each conference; this is often
called the conference marker. This makes
it possible for the system to tell users
which messages are new to them
when they connect to the system.
Bulletin boards are tools very
similar to computer conferences. In
this article, "computer conference"
will also refer to bulletin boards.
Another tool for group communica-
tion common in computer-based
message systems (CBMSs) is the dis-
tribution list. A distribution list, like a
conference, has a set of members. A
distribution list, however, usually does
not store messages. When a message
is sent to a distribution list, the "list"
will just expand the number of recip-
ients of the message and forward it
as individual mail to all the members
(continued)
\acob Palme, chief researcher at QZ,
Stockholm University Computing Center,
studies the social effects of computers and
specializes in research and development of
computer-based message and conferencing
systems. He is one of the developers of the
COM and PortaCOM computer conferencing
systems. He can be contacted at QZ, Stock-
holm University Computing Center. Box
27322, S-102 54 Stockholm. Sweden.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 187
STANDARDS
of the distribution list.
Some systems provide special facil-
ities to support other group commu-
nication tasks like voting, scheduling
of face-to-face meetings, joint produc-
tion of a manuscript, and so on. The
first versions of future standards will
probably cover only conferences and
distribution lists, leaving more spe-
cialized group tasks for future ver-
sions of the standards.
The Group Agent Concept
Instead of developing one standard
for each type of group communica-
tion, it is better to develop general
concepts in the standard. For exam-
ple, computer conferences and dis-
tribution lists can be combined into
a more general concept called a group
agent.
The group agent can store mes-
sages to be retrieved by some of its
members, as in a computer con-
ference, and forward messages as
mail to some of its members, as with
a distribution list.
Some group agents do not store
messages and work as pure distribu-
tion lists. Other group agents may
have no facility for automatic forward-
ing of messages and work as pure
computer conferences. But many of
the operations on the group agent
(for example, adding a member or
entering a message) can be similar for
both kinds of group agents. This shar-
ing of operations functionality for
both types of group agents reduces
the size of the standard.
A further advantage is that the
group agent concept can be used not
only to interconnect a conference sys-
tem to other conference systems but
also to interconnect to simpler mail
systems. Conferences will then appear
as distribution lists to users of the mail
system, who will have the conference
messages sent to them as mail, as
shown in figure 1 .
Conference-System
Interconnection
Since most conference systems can
also handle personal electronic mail,
one way of connecting them might be
the one shown in figure 1 . However,
two other modes of connection are
possible, as shown in figures 2 and 3.
Figure 2 shows a structure of paral-
lel conferences. A similar structure for
connecting distribution lists is pos-
sible. Every message entered into the
conference in CBMS A is copied into
the parallel conference in CBMS B.
Any local user in either the A or the
B system can read all the messages
in the conference, originally entered
in either the A or the B system, in the
same way as in a stand-alone con-
ference system.
The conference in system B, CB, can
be seen as a member of the con-
ference in system A, CA, and vice
versa. Conference CA could work
partly as a distribution list to ensure
CONF. CONF. CONF
MEM- MEM- MEM-
BER BER BER
USER USER USER
MAIL- MAIL- MAIL-
BOX BOX BOX
Figure 1: \n this alternative, the grout) agent CA in CBMS A will act like a group
agent to local users, who get messages from the conference, but like a mailing list to
remote users at CBMS B, to whom messages are sent by CA.
that a new message, entered into CA,
is copied into CB, automatically for-
warding all new entries (except those
coming from CB) to CB. This is an-
other reason why a good standard
should combine computer conferen-
cing and distribution lists into one
general concept.
Of course, messages could also be
forwarded from A to B only when B
asks for them. This might be suitable
if, for example, B is a personal com-
puter that does not stay on line all the
time.
Figure 3 shows an alternative struc-
ture, where messages are stored only
in conference CA in system A. When-
ever a user of system B wants to read
a message, that message is retrieved
automatically from system A. This, of
course, requires fast networks to give
users acceptable response times.
The structures shown in figures 2
and 3 can be combined. For example,
system B might request the new mes-
sages from system A the first time any
user wants to read them but then
keep the messages for some time for
other members of CB or for retrieval
by the original reader who wants to
look at the message once more.
Data Structures
Standards for the interconnection of
message systems need to define two
things: an abstract model of the data
structures involved and definitions of
the operations used for communica-
tion between the systems.
Here is a typical example of the
data structure and attributes for
"members" of the group agent con-
cept: A group agent will have a list of
members. Members can be users or
other groups (for example, a parallel
conference in another system). Each
member will have a number of at-
tributes, defining his or her relation-
ship within the group. Examples of
such attributes are listed below.
Auto-forwarding: New messages to
the group are forwarded automati-
cally as mail to members with this at-
tribute. It is used when the group
agent acts as a distribution list.
Read access: Members with this at-
188 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
STANDARDS
tribute are allowed to request entries
from the group.
Write access: Members with this at-
tribute are allowed to enter messages
to the group.
Organizer access: Members with this
attribute are allowed to modify the list
of members and other attributes of
the group. Organizer access can be
divided into different rights to modify
various attributes. A special, but im-
portant, case is the right to modify
only the value of an attribute with
respect to yourself. You might thus be
allowed to enter and remove yourself
from the list of members of a group
but not to enter and remove other
members. In standards work, people
with the right to modify information
only about themselves are usually
called friends.
The set of members with different
rights in relation to a group need not
always be defined by an explicit list
of all the members. For open (public)
conferences, for example, anyone may
be allowed to read or become a
member of the group. The set of
members with a certain right may also
be defined by what is known as a class
description, for example, "everyone" or
"all citizens of Sweden" or "all
employees of IBM," provided that a
database is available that can check
whether a certain person belongs to
a certain class or not.
Message Data Structure
A very important property of a stan-
dard is the facility to give every mes-
sage a globally unique identifier that
will not be changed even if the mes-
sage is forwarded many times or
stored and forwarded again. Such an
ID can, for example, be used to en-
sure that the relation between a mes-
sage and a reply to it is preserved
even if the message and the reply are
forwarded at different times.
The basic data structure for mes-
sages is the conference. A conference
defines an ordered sequence of mes-
sages. The same message may belong
to more than one conference.
Another important kind of message
data structure is the binary relation-
CBMS A
CBMS B
PARALLEL
CONFERENCES
o
LOCAL USERS
LOCAL USERS
Figure 2: There are two parallel conferences in this alternative, CA in CBMS A and
CB in CBMS B, storing the same set of messages, local users get the messages from
their local instance of the conference. Mailing-list forwarding is done only between the
two conferences, not to personal mailboxes.
RETRIEVAL
LOCAL USERS
REMOTE USERS
Figure 3: \n this alternative, messages are stored only in conference CA at CBMS A.
Users at CBMS B get the messages at reading time from CBMS A using remote
retrieval operations. No automatic forwarding of messages (mailing-list functionality) is
used.
ship between messages like "in reply
to." Many other relations are possible,
such as "continuation of," "sub-
chapter to" etc. A standard will prob-
ably not place a restriction on such
relations, such as allowing them only
between messages within the same
conference.
Operations
Operations between connected sys-
tems have to be fully defined in the
standard and are in many ways similar
to the operations that a local user of
a conference system can perform
from his or her terminal. Here are
some of the main types of operations:
Search Group Directory: You might
search the group directory to find
where a conference exists on a par-
ticular subject that interests you. All
groups in the directory may, of course,
not be available for search by all
users.
Creation Operations: Create and
remove group agents.
Read and Set Attributes: Read and
modify the attributes of a group, such
as a list of members.
Membership Operations: Read and
modify information in the lists of
members with various rights in rela-
tion to a group.
[continued]
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
189
STANDARDS
Reading News helps
you find messages
you have not read,
based on the
position of your
conference marker.
Submitting Messages: Enter mes-
sages to a group.
Reading Messages: Retrieve mes-
sages from the storage connected to
a group agent, using simple retrieval
requests ("Give me the message with
the unique identifier X") or advanced
search requests ("Give me all mes-
sages between these dates with cer-
tain keywords in them").
Reading News: A special case of
reading. This operation helps you find
new messages you have not read
from a conference, based on the posi-
tion of your conference marker, which
is placed after the last-read message
in the conference.
An important issue is where to store
this conference marker. If every mes-
sage in a conference is identified by
a sequential position number in the
conference, the conference markers
for all conferences, even on remote
systems, might be stored in your local
system or personal computer.
Using Operations
You might first tell your local system
to find a conference about a subject
of interest to you, say. multicolor
printers. Your system will then use the
Search Group Directory operation to
find such a conference.
When a conference has been found
in some remote system, you tell your
system that you want to read the de-
scription of the remote conference.
Your system will find this description
using the Read Group Attributes
operation. If you decide that you want
to join the conference, your local sys-
tem sets up a local conference (in
your local system) on the same sub-
ject in parallel with the remote con-
ference. You then ask for the last 20
items in the conference. Your local
system gets these from the remote
system and stores them in the local
conference so you can read them.
You can also tell your personal com-
puter to connect to the networks and
retrieve all news. Your personal com-
puter then automatically connects to
the networks and gets all your unread
letters and unread messages in the
conferences you have chosen to par-
ticipate in using the Read News oper-
ation. It will then disconnect, and you
can locally read the new messages
and write your replies and comments.
You then tell your computer to con-
nect again to enter the new messages
you wrote locally, using the Submit
Messages operation.
Layered Standards
Standards for computer network ap-
plications are based on layers. Each
layer uses the facilities of the layer
below. Figure 4 shows how two layers
may relate to each other. Layer N sees
a message consisting of a layer N
header and a layer N body. Layer N
sees the body only as a sequence of
bytes: it does not understand any
structure within the body. In layer
N+ 1 . however, what was only a body
in layer N actually has a structure, for
example, with a layer N+ 1 header and
a layer N+ 1 body.
The MHS Model
The message-system model behind
the X.400 recommendation (see the
text box "Standards Work in Prog-
ress" below) is called the MHS (mes-
sage handling system). The model is
shown in figure 5.
The basic components of this
model are user agents (UAs) and mes-
sage transfer agents (MTAs). Every
personal mailbox has one UA repre-
senting that user. Using the UA. a user
can. for example, locally edit a mes-
sage. When the message is ready, it
is delivered from the UA to an MTA,
and the MTA will forward the message
to the MTA connected to the recipient
UA.
The protocol used to communicate
[continued]
Standards Work in Progress
Two main international organiza-
tions are involved in developing
computer conferencing standards.
These are ISO. the International Stan-
dards Organization (whose U.S. mem-
ber is ANSI), and CCITT. the Interna-
tional Telegraph and Telephone Con-
sultative Committee (organization of
telegraph and telephone providers).
Important also is ECMA. the European
Computer Manufacturers Association,
which in reality also includes the major
American manufacturers and provides
input to both ISO and CCITT.
CCITT has developed a standard for
interconnecting message systems,
called the MHS (message handling sys-
tem) or X.400 recommendation. (CCITT
standards are called recommenda-
tions, not standards.) This recommen-
dation was officially accepted by CCITT
in late 1984. The X.400 recommenda-
tion is purely for interconnection of
personally addressed mail— there is no.
facility in it for group communication,
not even for distribution lists.
ISO will soon adopt a standard called
MOTIS that is a copy of X.400 with
minor revisions.
ISO decided in April 1985 to ask all
member countries whether ISO should
begin to study the group communica-
tion area. This vote will probably be
ready in late 1985. and. if positive. ISO
will begin work in the group commu-
nication area in 1986.
During the autumn of 1985. CCITT
began studying possible revisions and
extension of X.400.
190 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 234 — ►
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STANDARDS
The MHS is a
model of message
exchange; it is not
a description of how
a message system
must be organized.
between a UA and an MTA is called
P3, and the protocol used to commu-
nicate between two MTAs is called PI.
Another level of protocol is P2, which
is actually on top of PI and is used
for formatting the messages being for-
warded. Although the messages
passed via PI and P2 are formatted
according to P2 protocol, this infor-
mation is not interpreted by the MTAs,
so the P2 protocol can be seen as a
protocol used between UAs (see
figure 5).
It is very important to understand
that the MHS is a model of message
exchange used to develop the stan-
dard. It is not a description of how a
message system must be organized.
A message system can communicate
perfectly well according to the X.400
recommendation but have a totally
different internal structure. Some mes-
sage systems with many users on one
computer may not have any sharply
defined user agent in them. They can
WHAT LAYER N SEES WHAT LAYER N + l SEES
HEADER LEVEL N
HEADER LEVEL N
BODY LEVEL N
HEADER LEVEL N+l
BODY LEVEL N + l
Figure 4: This figure shows how a new layer (N+l) can be built on top of a lower
layer (N). The protocol in layer N is used to forward a message, but what looks like
just a body with no structure to layer N is further structured by layer N+l, with, for
example, a new layer N+l header and body.
P3^
PI/
\P1
P3-"'
\P3
MTA
UA
UA
P2
MTA
MTA
UA
UA
Figure 5: This figure shows how messages are passed from UAs (user agents) via one
or more MTAs (message transfer agents) to the recipient UA in the MHS model. The
PI protocol is used between MTAs, and the P3 protocol is used between a UA and an
MTA. The messages passed via PI and P2 are formatted according to the P2 protocol,
but this information is not interpreted by the MTAs, so the P2 protocol can be seen as
a protocol between UAs.
still communicate with other MTAs by
using the PI and P2 protocols.
Since X.400 will probably be the
accepted standard for message han-
dling, a way must be found to handle
group communication within X.400.
Group communication will probably
be implemented by introducing group
agents into X.400. A group agent in
this context will be similar to a user
agent. It will have a name, and it will
interpret the P2 protocol information.
The functions of a group agent,
however, may be split into several
separate modules. X.400 will be ex-
tended with a directory system, and
the lists of members of groups will
probably be stored there. The actual
storage of messages belonging to a
certain group may be done by special
services for filing and retrieving
messages instead of by the group
agents. ■
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"CCITT-Recommendation X.400: Mes-
sage Handling Systems: System Model
Service Elements." For information, con-
tact Omnicom, 501 Church St. NE, Suite
304. Vienna, VA 22180.
"GILT— Interconnection of Computer
Based Message and Conference Sys-
tems," Green Version, June 1983. Avail-
able from Computing Center. Univer-
sitatsstrasse 1. Duesseldorf, Germany
Huitema, Christian. "The COSAC Elec-
tronic Conferencing Experiment." Paper
presented at the IFIP Second Interna-
tional Symposium on Computer Mes-
sage Systems. Washington, DC,
September 1985.
Palme, Jacob. "Distribution Agents (Mail-
ing Lists) in Message Handling Systems."
Paper presented at the IFIP Second In-
ternational Symposium on Computer
Message Systems. Washington, DC,
September 1985.
Palme, Jacob. "Survey of Computer-based
Message Systems." Paper presented at
lnteract'84. the first IFIP Conference on
Human-Computer Interaction. Septem-
ber 1984.
Wosnitza, Lothar. "Group Communication
in the MHS Context." Paper presented
at the IFIP Second International Sym-
posium on Computer Message Systems,
Washington, DC September 1985.
(Papers from IFIP conferences are pub-
lished in book form by North-Holland.)
192 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
■A f\
6*
w?
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 193
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COMPUTER CONFERENCING
DATABASE
STRUCTURE IN
PORTACOM
by Jacob Palme
A look at the functions
that affect database structure
COMPUTER CONFERENCING sys-
tems are often more database-
oriented than other message systems.
Thus, the database structure is an im-
portant property of a conferencing
system. We will examine some of the
functions that affect database struc-
ture within the COM and PortaCOM
computer-based conferencing sys-
tems.
A message can belong to one or
more ordered sets of messages. For
example, such a set can be the letters
to or from a certain person or the
messages in a conference. The word
activity is used for such a set of mes-
sages. An activity also has a name, a
list of users who are members of the ac-
tivity, and a sequential list of references
to messages. One message can be
entered into several activities. Only
one copy of the message text is
stored, with references from the ac-
tivities to the message text. Figure 1
shows links between messages and
activities containing lists of links to
messages.
Every user has a personal mailbox,
which is an activity containing letters
sent and received by that user. A user
can also create additional personal
activities and sort messages by enter-
ing references to them in one such
personal activity. A computer con-
ference is an activity with several
users as members who normally can
both read and write messages in the
conference. For example: A certain
message may be entered into the
three activities "Joan Smith," "COM
Experience," and "PortaCOM Devel-
opment." This message is then avail-
able to "loan Smith" as a letter and
to all members of the conferences
COM Experience and PortaCOM
Development as a conference entry.
When someone writes a comment on
the message, the comment is sent to
all the above recipients so that all who
read the original message also receive
the comment. The comment is also
sent to the author of the commented
message if he or she is not a member
of any of the other receiving activities.
It is also possible to write personal
answers that are sent only to the
author of the message.
Linking Entries
The recipient of a message can
establish links to it. In other words, he
or she can "send it along" to other ac-
tivities such as personal mailboxes or
conferences.
Figures 2,3, and 4 illustrate a user
dialogue made up of linking entries.
The recipient links to the new entry
can be changed during or after the
writing of it. Commands exist for add-
ing and removing recipient links on an
entry. Figure 4 shows the use of the
!move command, which removes all
existing recipient links and adds one
or more new links.
Message Singularity
Under the COM/PortaCOM system,
you can't receive the same message
twice. A chain of comments is often
[continued)
\acob Palme, chief researcher at QZ,
Stockholm University Computing Center,
studies the social effects of computers and
specializes in research and development of
computer-based message and conferencing
systems. He is one of the developers of the
COM and PortaCOM computer conferencing
systems. He can be contacted at QZ, Stock-
holm University Computing Center, Box
27322, S-102 54 Stockholm. Sweden.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 195
PORTACOM
sent to the same set of recipients,
which could be, for example, two con-
ferences and two personal mailboxes.
A user will not see this entry twice
even if he or she is a member of both
conferences.
Users who do not have their per-
sonal mailboxes in a certain COM sys-
tem can have messages sent to them
via message networks such as MAIL-
NET or ARPANET. The recipients'
COM conference will appear as a con-
ference to local users and as a mail-
ing list to external users. Note also
that, in this case, an external user who
is a member of two COM conferences
will only get one copy as mailing-list
mail.
In ARPANET there is an unwritten
rule that a message should not be
sent to more than one mailing list. In
COM/PortaCOM, there is no need for
such a restriction.
Multiplying Recipients
In COM a comment is normally sent
to all the recipients (conferences and
mailboxes) of the commented mes-
TEXT AREA
COM/PORTACOM DATABASE STRUCTURE
LIST OF ACTIVITY ACTIVITY ACTIVITY
LINKS ABC
3
—
COMMENT
5
COMMENT
COMMENT
REF.
LINK
Figure 1: In the database structure shown here, message 6 is linked to activities A, B,
and C Messages 7 and 8 are comments on comment 6. Activity A contains a list of
links that describes the relationship between all the messages in the text area.
(Text 22545) 85-04-05 22.27 Dennis Jennings Univ. College Dublin
Receiver: Computer networks
Receiver: IBM computers
Receiver: NSIN01 @ RLGB.JNT-MAIL(Paul Bryant)
— Received: 85-04-06 05.02
Comment on: (Text 21135) by Ulf Beyschlag CERN
Subject: BITNET
See my earlier comment.
(Text 22545)
Figure 2: The user reads an entry, which was in this case linked to two conferences
and one personal mailbox, remotely accessible via mail networks.
sage. In general, this function works
well. In some cases, however, you may
wish to send a message to one or
more conferences or mailboxes with-
out having them flooded with all of
these extraneous comments. This can
be done with a special kind of link
between the text and the recipient
called "single copy."
Comments (by default) are not sent
to single-copy recipients of the com-
mented message. The author of the
comment can, of course, give a com-
mand to also send the comment to
these recipients (unless they are write-
protected).
Types of Conferences
A COM/PortaCOM conference is cate-
gorized by the following attributes:
Open: Anyone can become a
member.
Closed: Only the organizer(s) can add
new members.
Restricted: Open to one set of users,
closed to another set.
Protected: A closed conference,
where nonmembers cannot even find
out that the conference exists.
Write-protected: Only some can
create links between texts and the
conference. Note that the restriction
is not on who may write texts but who
can link them. An editor of a write-
protected conference can therefore
link texts (written by noneditors) to
that conference.
Original: These conferences are most
often used for getting a selection of
the most interesting items out of
other conferences. The original con-
ference will not automatically get
comments on entries sent to it.
Whenever a message cannot be
sent to a conference because of
restrictions for write-protected or
original conferences, a super-conference
can be defined to which the com-
ments are sent. For example, a news-
letter may be write-protected, but
anyone can comment on the news
items. Comments will be sent to a
writable conference for comments on
the news. I will cite some examples of
the types of conferences described
{continued)
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DECEMBER I985 -BYTE
197
PORTACOM
above and show how they relate to
specific tasks.
Electronic Publishing
An author sends a new item to an ac-
tivity for incoming manuscripts. This
is a closed activity, readable by one
or more of the editors. They look at
the paper and establish a new link
from it to the personal mailbox of one
or more referees.
The referees' comments are entered
into a special activity for such com-
ments, together with a reference link
in the database that connects each
comment to the original entry. The
What do you want to do? (Read) next notice, Quit, Comment (on
entry), (Send a) letter (to), Personal (answer), Other.
- [comm]
Comment (on entry)
Receiver: Computer networks
Receiver: IBM computers
Receiver: NSIN01 @ RLGB.JNT-MAIL(Paul Bryant)
Comment on: Text 22545 (by Dennis Jennings Univ
College Dublin)
Subject: BITNET
Figure 3: The comment command starts a new entry, with a comment link to the
previous entry and with recipient links to the same entries as the previous entry.
[Imove BITNET planning]
Move (entry) BITNET planning
BITNET planning added as receiver
You are at the end of the entry.
Subject: Doing the rounds
[Moved entry]
[lenter]
Enter (it)
17.32 Letter (Text 30767) sent to:
BITNET planning
What do you want to do? (Read) next notice, Quit, Read (the)
rest, Comment (on entry), (Send a) letter (to), Personal (answer),
(Re-)type (the text), Other.
- [type]
(Re-)type (the text)
(Text 30767) Today 17.32 New Userman
Receiver: BITNET planning
Comment on: Text 22545 (by Dennis Jennings Univ. College Dublin)
Subject: Doing the rounds
Moved entry
(Text 30767)
Figure 4: At this point, the user wishes to Imove the entry (comment on Text
22545) to the BITNET planning conference. He uses the Imove command, which
removes all previous recipient links from the message.
editor decides to accept the paper
(possibly after revision by its author)
and then establishes a link between
the paper and the activity for pub-
lished papers, such as the electronic
journal itself. This activity is write-
protected so that only the editors can
link items to it.
System Development
A conference is opened for users of
a certain software system. A user in
this conference suggests an improve-
ment to the system. Some other users
comment on this improvement. The
system designers then discuss how to
implement this improvement in a
closed conference for those respon-
sible for development of the system.
Even though their discussion is in
a separate conference, it can still be
linked to the original discussion, since
commentary links in COM/PortaCOM
can cross conference boundaries.
When the change is implemented, a
comment is entered into the user con-
ference again, commenting on the
original proposal and informing the
users that the change has now been
implemented.
If users ask the system to print all
entries in a certain structure of direct-
ly and indirectly linked messages, they
will be shown only the subset that
they are allowed to see. Thus, the or-
dinary user will be shown only the
discussion in the user conference,
while the implementers will be shown
the discussion in their closed con-
ference as well.
Selecting Messages
Participants in large public con-
ferences can select messages of spe-
cial interest to themselves or some-
one else and link them to special
selection conferences. For example, I
select those messages that I think my
manager should read, and I send
them along to him by linking them to
his personal mailbox or to a closed
conference for the two primary
managers of our computer center.
Selected messages can also be sent
to public conferences, designed so
that original entries cannot again be
(continued)
198 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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Dealer Inquiries Invited
PORTACOM
sent to them; only entries that have
been referred there from other con-
ferences can be sent.
Telex Handling
Suppose that you want to introduce
a system in which all outgoing telexes
have to be approved by certain telex
controllers. You can then create an ac-
tivity for all suggested telexes or, if
you prefer, separate activities for sug-
gested telexes, one to be handled by
each telex controller.
The telex controllers have the right
to move entries from these activities
to other activities of messages to be
sent as outgoing telexes. The program
that transmits outgoing telexes ap-
pears to the system as a special kind
of human user who takes messages
from the activity for outgoing telexes
and sends them. In the same way, in-
coming telexes can be entered into a
conference for incoming telexes
before a human decides to which ac-
tivities to move these telexes for
handling.
Links Between Messages
COM/PortaCOM also allows links be-
tween messages when one message
is a comment on, or a reply to, a
previous message. These links are
also stored in the database and will
create a structure consisting of all the
messages related via these links.
There are commands for traversing
these links. They are used, for exam-
ple, to find all the comments on the
message or for traversing (backward
or forward) the whole structure of all
the messages linked together. There
are also commands to tell the com-
puter that you do not want to read the
rest of the entries in this set of
messages but that you still want to re-
main a member of the conference.
Database Structure
To a novice user, COM/PortaCOM is
a system for handling letters and con-
ference entries. The fact that both let-
ters and conference entries are
handled by the general-purpose ac-
tivity concept is transparent to the
novice user.
The database structure of COM/
PortaCOM does not use a separate
storage area for each conference. In-
stead, the database consists of ob-
jects and links.
Text items, personal mailboxes, and
conferences are objects. Entering a
text item into a conference, sending
it to a mailbox, or making it a com-
ment on a previous message entails
the creation of a new link in the data-
base. Each object has a list of links to
and from it. All links are members of
the list of links of both the linked ob-
jects, so that a link can always be
found starting at either end.
New links can be added, or old links
removed, at any time. Thus, the for-
warding of a message to a new reci-
pient only entails the creation of a
new link in the database, between the
text item and the mailbox of the reci-
pient. The removal of a message from
a conference entails the removal of a
link (not deletion of the text itself, as
it may still be linked to other con-
ferences or mailboxes). For example,
it is possible to create a link between
two text items long after they have
been added to the database by say-
ing that one of them is a comment on
the other.
A user has the authority to add and
remove links to his or her own mes-
sages. The organizers of a conference
have authority to add and remove
links to the conference. The creator of
a link has the authority to remove the
links he has created. The COM ad-
ministrator can assume privileged
powers to create or remove any links
in the database. One of the challenges
of designing computer message
systems is to find suitable principles
for such access rights to further
smooth information flow while pro-
tecting privacy requirements. ■
Editors note: The COM and PortaCOM
manuals are available from QZ, Stockholm
University Computing Center, Box 27 '322,
S-102 54 Stockholm, Sweden.
REFERENCES
1. Palme. Jacob, and Eva Aibertson. COM
Teleconferencing System— Advanced manual.
Stockholm, Sweden: QZ Computing
Center, September 1983.
2. Palme, Jacob. "Survey of Computer-
based Message Systems." Interact '84 con-
ference papers. Amsterdam: North-
Holland, 1984.
3. PortaCOM Teleconferencing— User manual.
Stockholm, Sweden: QZ Computing
Center December 1982.
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202 BYTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 279
COMPUTER CONFERENCING
THE NETWORK
APPLICATION
MANAGER
by Robert A. Flavin and Jack D. Williford
You can put any application involving communications
on a conferencing system
WE DEFINE computer conferencing
much more generally than most peo-
ple do. We see traditional computer
conferencing as a subset of the spec-
trum of applications of computer-
mediated communications. The net-
work application manager is a system
that provides the functions needed to
support many communications appli-
cations.
Even a distributed chess-playing
program could be considered to be
an adaptation of raw computer con-
ferencing to a specific task. In a tradi-
tional computer conference, a group
of people submit short notes or
pieces of text to a system that stores
and redistributes the information. You
can also use such a communication
system to transmit the moves of a
chess game between two players and
their spectators. However, special-
purpose interfaces that understand
chess shorthand and how to display
chess moves would be even more
desirable to tailor the conferencing
system to the needs of the chess
players.
Convinced that such a computer
communication system needed to be
built, we set about designing one.
What characteristics should such a
system have? We already had some in
mind. But, to the consternation of
many of the developers, some of the
system's design considerations were
premises a posteriori, design points
that we weren't able to articulate until
after we had seen the consequences
of violating them.
Many of the characteristics that set
the direction for the system were
lessons learned from an earlier con-
ferencing effort, the PALTRY Com-
puter Conferencing System. (PALTRY
was so named to ward off criticism of
the early system.) Our new system was
christened GRANDiose, or GRAND
for short. (See the text box
"GRANDiose Design Considerations"
on page 204.)
VNET An Enormous
Testing Ground
It would be impossible to experiment
and test the ideas behind GRAND
without getting it into the hands of
real users. A suitable collection of
such users was available on IBM's
VNET system. VNET is a collection of
about 2000 major computers dis-
tributed among 2 1 5 cities throughout
the world. The computers are con-
nected together by a variety of means,
including channel-to-channel adapt-
ers, satellite links, fiber-optic cables,
and phone lines. The terminals and
workstations of the 200,000 network
users are connected to the main com-
puters by channel attachments,
1.2-megabyte-per-second direct coax-
ial cables, local-area networks, and
twisted-pair, dedicated, and dial-up
phone links.
The major computers on VNET run
various versions of IBM's VM/370 and
MVS operating systems. VNET's users
include experienced systems pro-
(conlinued)
Robert A. Flavin and }ack D. Williford are
research staff members at IBM (T I. Watson
Research Center, POB 218, Yorktown
Heights. NY 10598). Bob studied electrical
engineering and computer science at Princeton
University and is interested in operating-
system and microcomputer design. )ack studied
mathematics at Lyman Briggs College of
Michigan State University and has interests
in natural-language processing and home com-
puter applications.
DECEMBER
IYTE 203
APPLICATION NETWORK
grammers. novice users, computer
scientists, secretaries, corporate ex-
ecutives, summer students, manufac-
turing workers, administrators, and
managers. In various combinations
and for various purposes, all these
people need to communicate.
Because VNET is the principal elec-
tronic means by which people in IBM
communicate, the conferencing appli-
cations must compete and cooperate
with established electronic-mail and
communications programs. Merely
providing electronic mail isn't enough
to get anyone's attention.
VNET is a store-and-forward net-
work that can transmit both files and
messages (short, about 100-byte.
priority transmissions). Hardware and
software problems can delay or even
lose messages and files. No end-to-
end acknowledgments of transmis-
sion are built into the basic transmis-
sion system, which is based on
VM/370's RSCS (remote-spooling con-
trol system).
Although this community is an ex-
cellent test bed for GRAND, we had
to design it to fit into other operating
systems and into communications
networks with different characteristics.
This meant that we had to include the
appropriate interfaces so it could run
on and communicate with other sys-
tems.
The Network-based
Application
If you wanted to write a program to
maintain a database about hiking
trails, you could write it on your
microcomputer. If you gave a copy of
the program to a friend, he or she
could maintain his or her own data-
base about hiking trails. While you
have saved your friend the effort of
writing the program, you will both be
[continued]
GRANDiose Design
Considerations
The Network
• GRAND users should be able to re-
main in their normal electronic environ-
ment, which includes the operating sys-
tem, file, profiles, and tools that they
have available during normal use of
their computers. They should not have
to log onto someone else's computer,
have all their commands taken by the
conferencing system, and be separated
from the tools and files that they are
accustomed to. To accomplish this,
some conferencing-system programs
must run in the user's environment to
transmit data to the rest of the system.
• You cannot serve all users with one
main computer. Even if you are willing
to force people to (logically) leave their
normal environment, no one computer
could support a very large communi-
ty of users (i.e.. the world). Thus, you
must distribute the system among a
collection of computers.
• You must isolate part of the system
from direct user control to ensure that
data is secure from unauthorized use,
to ensure data integrity, and for system
reliability. Therefore, you need to
establish server tasks.
• You should be electronically as close
to the computer that is providing the
conferencing service as possible. Com-
puter users are neither happy nor pro-
ductive if they get poor performance
from their computers; therefore, trans-
action speed is important. If you use
a large computer and if the confer-
encing data is stored on disks that you
have access to, you can get extremely
fast service. If, however, your connec-
tion to the data is over a T-l carrier (a
1 . 5-megabit-per-second telecommuni-
cations line), your service is not as
good. If you must go through voice-
grade phone lines, it's even worse. In
some situations your interactive com-
munication must be handled by a
series of hops across various commu-
nication lines. But the closer you can
be, the better.
The Applications
• GRAND must support a variety of
communications applications. No
single design of a traditional computer
conferencing system is well-suited for
all users in all situations. For example,
the features and functions that a com-
puter conference needs to arrange a
Frisbee game among 30 people differ
from those needed by a professor to
conduct a class.
• Because the tastes, expertise, and
practices of different users are quite
different, no single user interface is
satisfactory. Therefore, you need more
than one UIP (user-interface program).
To make practical the support of multi-
ple UIPs, GRAND needs a well-defined
programming interface for the UIPs to
communicate with. This interface must
include command syntax and the for-
mat and interpretation of application
data
• To authenticate who each user is. run
private conferences, and accommodate
individual preferences about how users
deal with the system. GRAND needs the
ability to verify that a transmission
comes from where it claims to come
from. This allows the system to restrict
certain commands to certain people no
matter where they are. This task
becomes more complex because the
system is distributed throughout a large
network of machines.
• The application programs within the
conferencing system should be in-
dependent of the user communica-
tions programs. If users remain in their
normal environments, they are unlike-
ly to all choose the same method of
communication with the system. There-
fore, the applications must not contain
any code for user communications.
• You don't want either central or com-
pletely independent server operation.
However, the parts of the system
should work in concert rather than as
a collection of independent domains.
Since we are unwilling to impose cen-
tral control, this task becomes a dif-
ficult communications problem. To
solve it. we treat managing the system
as a GRAND application. Thus, even
the operation and maintenance of
GRAND become a specialized con-
ferencing application.
204 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
It's the best thing since 1-2-3.
We asked current 1-2-3® users how
to get more out of 1-2-3.
And you told us.
Introducing 1-2-3 Release 2 from
Lotus.®
New 1-2-3 is more powerful and a
lot more versatile.
You wanted to handle larger jobs
with 1-2-3. Now you can. The new
1-2-3 worksheet has been expanded
to 8192 rows-4 times its original size.
And your worksheet is actually more
flexible because advanced memory
management allocates memory more
efficiently and allows data to be stored
anywhere on the worksheet. When
used with new expanded memory
boards, new 1-2-3 can address mem-
ory beyond 640K.
New 1-2-3 is designed to support
the Intel® 8087/80287 math coproces-
sors so you can now do many calcula-
tions faster. We've even added some
features that make it possible to do
things like regression analysis, string
functions and string arithmetic. And
new 1-2-3 comes with 40 new macro
commands so you can work more
efficiently and a lot more productively.
Now you can start 1-2-3 directly off
a hard disk without putting a system
disk in the floppy disk drive.
But we still kept things simple.
In many respects, new 1-2-3 isn't
any different from the original. You
wanted us to keep things simple and
we did. If you're already familiar with
1-2-3, you're ready to use new 1-2-3.
You don't have to retrain. And new
1-2-3 can read and process existing
1-2-3 files so that virtually all appli-
cations already developed can easily
be used.
It's even easy to upgrade to
new 1-2-3.
If you're a registered 1-2-3 user and
want to upgrade to new 1-2-3, you'll
find all the details in a mailing from
Lotus. If you haven't registered yet,
complete and send in your Warranty
Registration Card or call 1-800-
TRADEUP* so we can send you the
mailing.
The cost of the Upgrade product
is $150. You are eligible for a free
upgrade if you purchased 1-2-3
Release 1A on or after April 24, 1985.
And for everyone who upgrades,
there's also a rebate offer of $40 on the
Intel Above™ Board, the first expanded
memory board certified by Lotus.
We think you'll find new 1-2-3 the
best thing since, well, 1-2-3.
"In Canada call 1-800-447-4700.
Suggested retail price of new 1-2-1 is $495. 1-2-3 Release 2 requires
25 6K of memory. The minimum memory requirement for 1-2-1 Release
1A is 192k.
■P Lotus'
1 1 985, Lotus Development Corporation. Lotus and 1-2-3 are registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation. Intel is a registered trademark and Above is a trademark of Intel Corporation.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 205
APPLICATION NETWORK
developing different databases.
If you wrote the database system on
a time-sharing system, or if your
microcomputers were connected to-
gether, you could maintain a common
database. You could both benefit
from the work that each of you does.
This is a fundamental improvement in
the system's usefulness.
If you gave this program to another
set of people on another time-sharing
system, they could create their own
database. But the two databases will
differ. If these time-sharing systems or
networks of microcomputers were
connected together, the database
programs could create one massive,
common database from which all the
users could benefit.
For these reasons, applications
should be designed so that they treat
the entire network as a uniform col-
lection of users: you should not write
them with one microcomputer or one
time-sharing system in mind. The
power of microcomputers is great, but
it pales in comparison to the poten-
tial of networks of computers, large
and small.
The Network Application
Manager
Once you accept the value of network-
based applications, how do you
design them? Should each hiker's
database, chess-game manager, news-
distribution system, program-library
manager, mail system, and confer-
encing system be independent? All
these systems have a large overlap in
the functions that they need in order
to work. Rather than duplicate the ef-
fort each time a new application
comes along, you should distill their
common parts into a support system
for all the applications. This network
application manager (NAM) would
provide the basic communication and
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support services that the applications
need in order to maintain and dis-
tribute their data and to communicate
to the users.
By providing these services, the
NAM reduces the effort required to
develop new network-based applica-
tions. Thus, applications that
previously were too costly to develop
have become cost-effective. This is an
ordinary benefit of standardization
and careful modular design. The vir-
tue of establishing a network of
servers that supports many applica-
tions is that the overhead cost— both
in terms of computer resources con-
sumed and administrative and opera-
tional burden— of supporting the ap-
plications in the shared system is less
than the cost of operating all the ap-
plications as separate systems. Thus.
still more possible applications
become practical. One of our chal-
lenges is to figure out what sorts of
heretofore outlandish computer uses
are now reasonable.
The GRAND Design
How did we decide to organize our
system? The proper choice of inter-
faces between parts of the system was
critical to its survival as it grew and
matured (see figure 1). The real work
is done by the servers. A server is a
task that waits for a user request to
come in, interprets its commands
when it arrives, and then waits for the
next request. Typically, servers main-
tain local copies of databases and
communicate to users and other
servers. They treat each other as
peers; there is no one server that is
master of all.
Servers are sprinkled around the
network so that transmission delays
between the user and the local data
stores are not long. Most other con-
ferencing systems rely on only one
server. In these systems your terminal
is connected directly and exclusively
to the conferencing system. This sys-
tem design is easier because you
don't have to maintain a distributed
database. However, it rules out hav-
ing a large number of active users and
leaving them in their normal elec-
[continued)
206 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 419
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No matter what IBM PC you have, blue
chip service is more than just expert repair.
Blue chip service offers the choice of ser-
vice that's right for you at the price that's right
for you. It means we'll exchange your monitor,
for example, at your place or at any of our
Service/Exchange Centers.
And blue chip service means a lot of things
you don't see. Quality. Speed. Commitment.
And IBM experience. Every year IBM invests
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As an IBM customer you deserve blue chip
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For more information, use the coupon or
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Inquiry 173
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 207
Inquiry 388
1st PLACE
COMPUTER SYSTEMS
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OTHER INFORMATION: 602-867 9897
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P.S. Hearing handicap, call us on your TTY.
COMPUTERS
APPLICATION NETWORK
tronic environments.
You don't need to make all applica-
tions available at all servers. And you
don't need to duplicate all conference
databases at all servers. These mat-
ters are specific characteristics of the
applications rather than architectural
requirements of GRAND itself.
Your Relationship
to the Server
If you are sitting in your own environ-
ment and the servers are off some-
where else talking to each other, how
do you get anything done? When you
want to use some application that
uses the server network, you invoke
a user-interface program (UIP) that
figures out what you want and, if
necessary, sends a command to the
local server. Because the UIP runs in
your environment, it isn't protected
from you. As a matter of fact, you are
encouraged to develop your own UIPs
if they would better suit your needs
and preferences. The server is out of
your direct control, so it can do the
testing required to ensure the securi-
ty of the server network.
You may select any UIP you wish to
communicate to the servers. Your
decision may be dependent on per-
sonal preference, degree of experi-
(continued)
USERS
Figure l: GRANDiose server network. Some of the main computers have servers in
them, and some don't. The user workstations can be microcomputers or terminals. The
blue line represents the transmission of a news bulletin over an LAN to the nearest
server. The red lines from the server represent the transmission of notification of the
news bulletin to various users and servers.
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DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 209
APPLICATION NETWORK
ence, and choice of editors. All of an
application's users do not need to be
using the same UIP; they only need
to be using UiPs that know how to
deal with the particular application
that they are using.
To reduce the complexity of writing
UlPs. there is a service routine that
provides a standard way of finding
and communicating with the local
server. This lets you change the com-
munication techniques without affect-
ing the UIP.
In a GRAND Style
One of the most important things we
learned from PALTRY is that there is
no one right way of doing something.
Depending on the application and the
needs of the users, you may need dif-
ferent styles of doing a particular task.
This leads to the concept of style pro-
grams, interchangeable programs that
perform well one style of doing some-
thing.
In order to notify you of some news,
we need notification-style programs,
or NSPs. If a conference wants to
notify an ARPANET user of a new
entry, it might be appropriate to
package the new entry with an
RFC822 (ARPANET mail-format stan-
dard) header, with its "To," "From,"
and "Subject" lines and send it off. If
you usually log on the very machine
that the server is on, then sending you
mail about a new entry may be unnec-
essary. In this case, you may prefer to
have a message written to your ter-
minal telling you to look at some file
for the new entry. Both are reasonable
ways of notifying you. Therefore, both
methods are written into NSPs, and
you select the one you want from the
library of NSPs.
In addition to NSPs, other system
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1
N^y ( ASpJ (n
;p
i (nspJ \^y
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/'chess
^UIP
APPLES
INFO J
cz
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USER
us
ER
Figure 2: GRANDiose server internal organization. The NAM routes commands to
the CSPs that contain the application-specific code. The ASPs and NSPs transmit and
receive information to and from the server. The UIP exists within the user's sphere: half
of the UIP communicates with the server, and the other half interprets the application-
specific information. The blue line from one user represents the transmission of a chess
move from the CHESS UIP through an ASP to the NAM and on to the CSCHESS
application. CSCHESS then forwards the move, via the red line, through an NSP out
over the network.
functions that may need to be tailored
to match the preferred way of doing
something are broken out from the
basic kernel of the system. These func-
tions include things like conference-
style programs (CSPs). arrival-style
programs (ASPs), and user-interface-
style programs (UIPs). See figure 2 for
a diagram of how these functions
interact.
The Design of a Server
Lopping off all the functions that need
tailoring leaves the common part of
the system, the NAM. Its function is
to wake up when something needs to
be done, perform various functions,
and pass the request, along with any
information about its context, to the
program that actually does the work.
The NAM finds some input, figures
out who sent it, and proceeds to
parse the command and execute the
request. Certain common commands
are processed directly by the NAM.
For example, the NAM verifies that re-
questers are who they say they are
before it honors their requests. A re-
quest usually names the application,
or conference, that it is addressing.
Based on the conference name, the
NAM invokes the correct program to
handle the request and passes the re-
mainder of the request to it for pro-
cessing.
The Conference-Style
Program
The program that processes all re-
quests directed to a particular con-
ference is called the CSP Its scope is
any matter related to the application's
function. Other parts of the system
merely provide services to the appli-
cation, but none infringe on the CSP's
ability to define what the application
does. Typically, the CSP manages a
database of its choosing, honors com-
mands of its choosing, and transmits
data to users and other servers. It also
determines which users may execute
which commands. Of course, if the
CSP doesn't make a good choice
about what it's going to do, it won't
be a very useful application.
For example, CSAPP, one of
(continued)
210 BYTE- DECEMBER 198S
Newl
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Inquiry 214
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
APPLICATION NETWORK
GRAND's CSPs, implements rather or-
dinary computer conferencing as its
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to do what to each of the other files.
Imbedded in CSAPP are certain deci-
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its distributed database and what
rules it has about how people can
manipulate the data.
If users running other conferences
like CSAPP, they can create another
instance of a CSAPP conference. If
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they feel strongly enough that they
want their conference run differently,
they can develop another CSP that
does things the way they think best.
Thus, several different conferencing
applications, tailored to the needs of
the users, can coexist on GRAND.
Of course, another application, such
as the chess-game manager, would
have vastly different assumptions
about the way to manage its con-
ference, but it would have roughly the
same general organization.
At some point, the CSP is likely to
need to communicate to its users.
However, this is a very complicated
task. Each CSP may have to commu-
nicate to users and servers on dif-
ferent types of machines, running all
sorts of operating systems, connected
to the network in strange ways, and
having the most incomprehensible
preferences. Rather than having the
CSPs be aware of all the appropriate
means of communication, the NSPs
handle that function.
Notifying Users
Notification-style programs are
another group of programs that the
NAM calls on to honor requests from
the CSPs. The NAM tells the NSP who
to notify and what to tell them about;
beyond that there are no limits to
what the NSP can do. Typically, the
NSP sends mail or a message. Some
NSPs just record the fact that there is
new information and that you should
check the database to see what it
says. Some NSPs do things, such as
send the information by telegram or
print the information on paper (for
those people who don't routinely con-
nect to the network). NSPs can also
serve as the gateways to GRAND
servers on other networks and be-
tween the GRAND network and other
conferencing systems and applica-
tions.
The logical counterpart of the NSP
is the arrival-style program. Usually, a
server receives GRAND commands in
their correct format. In order to han-
dle input from systems that do not
produce GRAND-format commands,
the server lets each ASP check any in-
(continued)
212
DECEMBER I?
Inquiry 328
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Inquiry 215
LOGITECH, Inc.
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LOGITECH SA
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DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 213
APPLICATION NETWORK
coming data for a recognizable for-
mat. If an ASP recognizes the format,
the ASP accepts the data, converts it
into GRAND-format commands, and
passes it along to be processed nor-
mally. Using combinations of ASPs
and NSPs, you can connect GRAND
servers to existing non-GRAND appli-
cations like single-machine databases
and other networks.
An Application Example
What must you consider to design an
application for GRAND? See the text
box A GRAND Application." One
rather conventional GRAND com-
puter conferencing application is
news distribution. In this conference,
one person, the person who writes
and edits the news items, can write to
the conference, while a large number
of people can listen. Many of the
details of how this conference works
were set up for this application; if you
have another application in mind, or
even another way of managing this
application, you can probably accom-
modate it by changing the control in-
formation for the conference or, if
necessary, by modifying or replacing
the CSP or the NSPs.
Let's say that some hot news just oc-
curred and you want to communicate
this to the subscribers of your con-
ference. You invoke your favorite UIP,
suspending the other work you are
doing. After entering the text of the
bulletin, you enter a command to
transmit the data from your virtual
machine to your local GRAND server.
The UIP prefixes the text of your en-
try with control information that iden-
tifies you to the conferencing system,
indicates that you are addressing the
News conference, and indicates that
you are adding a news bulletin. When
the server receives the request, it
verifies that the request came from
you. It then passes the command to
the CSP that manages the News con-
ference, which determines that you
are permitted to add news bulletins
and processes your request.
Processing the command to add a
news bulletin consists of adding the
bulletin to the local database and
then notifying all the conference sub-
scribers. To notify the subscribers, the
CSP goes through its list of sub-
scribers and invokes the NOTIFY pro-
gram once for each subscriber.
NOTIFY looks into the subscriber's
profile and runs the NSP that it has
selected, passing the NSP a pointer
to the subscriber and another to the
news bulletin.
A GRAND Application
The common parts of GRAND
should not limit what an applica-
tion can do. In addition to the design
decisions that you would normally
make when writing any computer pro-
gram, as a CSP developer you need to
consider the following points:
• Should you maintain the database at
one server, some servers, or all of the
servers? If the cost (in terms of money
or time) of transmitting the data as
needed is greater than the cost of
maintaining the data at more than one
server, then you should probably main-
tain multiple copies.
• How do you want to maintain a
distributed database? If you have more
than one server with write access, this
is difficult to do well, if possible at all.
(Most attempts at maintaining dis-
tributed databases require compli-
cated and expensive locking arrange-
ments that make them unpalatable.)
Fortunately, most applications do not
require solving this problem.
• What if you don't have local access
to the disk containing the data you
need? For most applications, this is not
a problem because the CSP can easily
send it. However, if you need access
to a great deal of data, the server can't
send you the entire database. The CSP
can. however, do a search for you and
send you the result. The UIP checks to
see if it has local access to the data.
If so. it does the search. If not, it sends
the request to the server to do for you.
In either case, you don't have to know
how your request is being honored;
you just get the result you asked for.
There are no restrictions on what an
NSP may do to notify you. Typically,
it sends you a file containing the news
bulletin. Some NSPs send immediate
messages containing the news, some
print the news on printers, and some
just add a pointer to a list of things
that you should look at sometime.
Among the list of subscribers to the
News conference are some other
servers. In the same manner that you
are notified of the news, the NSPs for
the servers are run, and the news
bulletin is transmitted to them.
Typically, a server has the news
bulletin delivered to it in a file over
VNET with the same sort of control
information your UIP added to the en-
try. When the bulletin arrives at the
other servers, they go through the
same process, updating their own
databases and notifying their News
subscribers of the news.
Depending upon the manner of
notification that you have selected,
you do different things. If you are
logged onto a machine that has a
server that maintains at least part of
the News database, you can link to the
disk that contains the data and
browse it by using any of a battery of
editors, utilities, and other UIPs. If you
are on a machine where no local copy
of the data is maintained, you may
have the data sent to you in a file. You
would invoke some program to see
the news, either using a standard mail
reader or a GRAND UIP especially
written for the purpose.
It may take only a few seconds be-
tween the time that you press the but-
ton to transmit the story and the time
that NEWS subscribers are reading
the story. Barring network problems
and unusually long delays, news on
GRAND is usually available around
the U.S. and Europe within 10 minutes.
The Serve Conference
Developing, maintaining, and operat-
ing the network of GRAND servers is
a big communications task. Various
commands, programs, and data must
be transmitted between certain peo-
ple and servers around the network.
The details are quite complex. We
[continued]
214 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 331 — ►
A CRQ
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APPLICATION NETWORK
decided to use GRAND itself to
manage this communications task, so
we developed a special CSP to
manage the Serve conference.
One special feature of GRAND is
the GRREP function. If you need to
correct a bug or add a new feature,
simply connect from your microcom-
puter to one of the mainframes on the
network, invoke your favorite editor,
edit the errant program, and execute
the GRREP command. GRREP is a
special-purpose UIP that can install a
program on GRAND
Unless you are accessing a copy of
a program that is maintained directly
by the GRAND server, GRREP saves
the file you have edited on your disk
and transmits the edited program to
the local server. GRREP then asks you
to describe the nature of the changes
that you have made to the program.
Finally, it transmits the description of
the changes to the server. (If you are
accessing a copy of a program main-
tained by the GRAND server. GRREP
doesn't have to save the original file,
because the server already has it.)
The server verifies who you are and
passes your input command to the
CSP that manages the Serve con-
ference. That CSP verifies that you are
allowed to replace that program on
the server and replaces the old ver-
sion with your new one. The previous
copy of the program is saved, on the
chance that you made a mistake, and
the fact that you changed the pro-
gram is recorded in the journal log.
With the new program in place, you
issue the commands to test out the
new code. You can have the server
trace the execution of the program
and send you the results. When you
are satisfied that your change is cor-
rect, you can issue another command
to the Serve conference to transmit
the new version of the program to all
the servers in the network.
Each server receives the files, up-
dates its copy of the program, makes
appropriate journal entries, and
notifies the appropriate operators of
the change. GRAND manages this
without interrupting any server's oper-
ation. Using the Serve conference we
can develop and operate the entire
system or parts of it from anywhere.
Conclusion
The ultimate goal of our effort is to
make possible the development of
computer applications that can be
used throughout the network. The
system should be flexible enough to
accommodate the different needs
and preferences of various users as
well as the different needs of the ap-
plications. We don't profess to know
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Inquiry 347 for End-Users. Inquiry 348 for DEALERS ONLY.
DECEMBER I985 'BYTE 217
Like our ads,
seem to go
The
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YEARS AHEAD OF THE
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While most other printers only offer standard
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Of course the warranty is one benefit of
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Is it an Epson
«»o» #%D •» •» o o o
• • • • • Baiv • • • • •
Isn't it an Epson?
For over a decade,
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Epson dot
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INCOMPATIBILITY:
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Software drives your computer.
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patible with your printer.
This can be shocking when the
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218 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Epson printers
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DECEMBER 1985 "BYTE 219
we wrote
the books
u . . .
Ecosoft's Eco-C88 C Compiler. $49.95
This has to be one of the best values on the market today. Eco-C88 has all
operators and data types (except bit fields), has 8087 support, and comes with
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You also get a UNIX-like cc with "mini-make" that makes the compiler a
snap to use. For a limited time, you will also get the Eco-C88 editor (described 1. Computer Language. Feb.. 1985. p. 79. Reproduced with permission.
below) free of charge. Works with all IBM PC's and MSDOS machines.
Eco-C88
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220 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 128
COMPUTER CONFERENCING
STORAGE
ARCHITECTURES
by Alastair J. W. Mayer
Their implications for conferencing systems
A COMPUTER CONFERENCING sys-
tem can be looked on as a special
case of a database where the entries
consist mainly of variable-length text
messages plus associated information
about who wrote them, when, and in
what context. The choice of file and
record structures, or "storage architec-
ture," can have profound implications
on what can be implemented easily
at the user-interface level and. indeed,
on how the messages relate to one
another.
When my colleagues and I sat down
to design the conferencing system
that would become known as CoSy,
we did not immediately start worry-
ing about file layouts, record struc-
tures, and the like. We started think-
ing about how the user would view
and use the system and then worked
backward from there. Of course, the
design process is never quite that sim-
ple. We had to go through several
iterations, because something that
we'd thought might be a great idea at
the user level turned out to be im-
possibly complicated to implement
but could be done easily with a small
change to the user interface.
Still, this was just a prototype. How-
ever, in a system of this sort, the files
created with the prototype tend to get
inherited by successive generations of
the software. Think how annoyed
users would get if the old conferences
became unreadable whenever a
change to the software was made! (In-
deed, one of the very first con-
ferences on the prototype, for discus-
sion among the developers and test
users, was still going strong a year
later when the software was well into
its second release and on its third
hardware home!)
Thus, the organization of the infor-
mation (the storage architecture) in
the system can have profound impli-
cations to later development of the
software. You can't just say, "Well, with
version 4 we'll go to a totally new file
organization," because then conver-
sion programs will need writing, and
some of the imaginable conversions
may not even make sense (because
certain necessary data was never
stored in the original files).
In this article I'll discuss some of the
trade-offs involved in deciding how to
store conferencing-system informa-
tion. Since I am responsible for most
of the detailed design and the coding
of the University of Guelph's CoSy sys-
tem, many examples will come from
that. I'll make some comparisons with
other conferencing systems (COM, for
example). It is not the specifics (of any
particular conferencing system) but
the implications and limitations of cer-
tain designs that are important. These
'designs may be considered hypothet-
ical.
I had to decide whether to ap-
proach this subject from the top
down, starting at the user-interface
layer or at least the general file-layout
layer, and working down to character
coding. Or I could start from the bot-
tom up, deciding how to store char-
acters in messages. Good program-
ming practice is to start at the top and
progress downward. One of the first
decisions was to use UNIX to develop
the system. (UNIX doesn't care what
a file contains; it is just a stream of
bytes.)
Conferences
The top level of organization in all
conferencing systems is obvious: con-
ferences. All conferences can be viewed
{continued)
Alastair J. W. Mayer (University of Guelph,
\nstitute of Computer Science, Guelph,
Ontario. Canada NIG 2W1) is the author
of the CoSu conferencing system.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 221
Inquiry 295
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LISP
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INTERNATIONAL'
STORAGE
as structures in their own right. On all
systems that 1 am familiar with, a con-
ference contains a collection of mes-
sages (which may be further grouped
or structured), together with informa-
tion about who reads or contributes
to that collection (or has permission
to).
Also associated with conferences is
descriptive information, such as the
date the conference was created, a
short narrative about the purpose of
the conference, and so on. Another
type of data associated with a con-
ference is the user ID of the person
who is allowed to manipulate the con-
ference in some special way, such as
adding or removing participants, mes-
sages, or groups of messages (this
person is usually referred to as the
conference moderator). Information
about which messages have been
read by particular participants (stored
to simplify the presentation of new
messages to the user) can be viewed
as being conference information. This
information can also be treated as user
information belonging with other data
about the user.
We've now come to the first deci-
sion point. Does "last message read"
information belong in a user-related
file or in a conference-related file?
Here the term "file" is used loosely;
a conference "object" may be made
up of several files.
Keeping "last message read" in the
conference file simplifies such house-
keeping operations as adding a user
to a conference (or removing one),
removing messages, and so on. On
the other hand, an element of redun-
dancy is lost by doing this. If such in-
formation is stored in user files, then
the system becomes easier to recon-
struct should something catastrophic
happen to a conference file. (I am
thinking more of a software error than
a hardware problem here, since full
backups are done regularly.)
In CoSy, I chose the latter approach,
with some redundancy. Each con-
ference has connected with it a list of
the members of that conference, and
each user has a list of the conferences
to which he or she belongs. Should
problems occur, one list can be rebuilt
from the others in the system. The
"messages read" information is kept
with the users' lists. Since this infor-
mation changes often when a user is
signed on and reading or writing mes-
sages, this list can be read into
memory and continually updated
without the disk I/O (input/output) that
would be needed if this information
were kept with conference files. COM
and Telecenter also keep this informa-
tion in the user files, although the
details are significantly different (see
references 1 and 2).
Conference-System
Hierarchy
Are "conferences" really the topmost
level of conference-system architec-
ture? In any type of business environ-
ment there have to be classes of con-
ferences. For example, there should
be public or open conferences (or
forums, if you prefer) that anyone can
browse through or contribute to. In-
deed, these are usually the most
popular and active ones on the sys-
tem. There are some discussions,
however, that should have restricted
(closed) access, although you may
want to post their existence so that
someone who is interested enough
can ask to be invited in. Finally, there
are conferences that are closed and
which the participants have no inten-
tion of letting anyone else into. Such
a conference might be a private con-
versation between two or three peo-
ple, for example. These unlisted con-
ferences are called "confidential" in
CoSy parlance.
We knew at the outset that we
would want these three classes of
conferences. But all three classes can
be treated alike (indeed, a CoSy con-
ference can be switched from one
class to another). Thus, there is no real
"class layer" above the conference
layer. Rather, information is logically
included within each conference ac-
cording to conference type.
Another upper layer is "groups" of
related conferences. This is an espe-
cially useful concept in an application
where there are many open con-
ferences (electronic publishing, for ex-
(continued)
222 B YTE • DECEMBER I98S
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'IBM, IBM PC. XT and AT are registered trademarks or International Business Machines Corp, 'APPLE is a registered trademark of Apple Computers Inc , 'TAXAN 555 is a registered trademark or Taxan Corp, 'PERSYST BOB
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and 6300 Plus are registered trademarks of American Telephone & Telepgraph
Inquiry 400 for End-Users. Inquiry 401 for DEALERS ONLY.
DECEMBER
BYTE 223
STORAGE
ample). The new user is likely to be
a bit bewildered by all the available
choices, so some method of grouping
conferences is desirable. There might
be a languages group, an operating-
systems group, and so on, each group
comprising a number of separate
conferences.
Had we thought of this idea at the
beginning, we would have been
tempted to incorporate it into the file
structure, using UNIX's directory
hierarchies. This concept, however,
did not arise until later, as the number
of active conferences grew and the
group structure became more virtual
than real. A group is really just a
named list of conferences, nothing
more. This, I think, is preferable to the
group/conference hierarchy that we
might have implemented, since it per-
mits users to transfer easily from one
conference to another without worry-
ing about whether they are crossing
a group boundary or not.
On the other hand, there are advan-
tages to having some sort of group
boundary in terms of giving users
easier control over how they read
their messages. The differences are
better appreciated if you've actually
used CoSy. However, I'll try to explain.
In CoSy, each user has a list of con-
ferences to which he or she belongs.
CoSy provides a simple mechanism
{continued)
A PROTOTYPE FOR YOUR PROTOTYPES
Methods
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224 BYTE • DECEMBER I98S
Inquiry 1 1 3
CompuPro Opens The Door
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STORAGE
for reading messages from these con-
ferences. Just hitting the Return key
will cause an automatic search for the
next unread message. The search
starts within the conference topic you
are already connected to, if any. and
continues on to the other topics in the
same conference (if the user has read
all the messages in the initial topic).
If all the messages in this conference
have been read, the search starts at
the top of the user's list of conferences
and progresses down through it, stop-
ping at the first unread message
With few conferences or a relative-
ly quiet system, this is perfectly ac-
ceptable. An 'order" command is pro-
vided so that users can rearrange con-
ferences on their lists, to place higher-
priority ones at the top. However, in
a situation where you are a member
of many conferences and there are
many other people on line at the
same time who are adding messages.
you can sometimes find yourself
"ping-ponging'' from one conference
to another as messages get added
elsewhere while you are reading the
messages in one conference. It would
be nice to be able to group con-
ferences in such a way that the ones
you use for work. say. are distinct from
those you participate in out of in-
terest, so that you are not distracted
by messages in lower-priority con-
ferences. This is not really that signifi-
cant a problem, as the "order" com-
mand can deal with this, although it
does illustrate that any feature can
have both positive and negative
effects.
Telecenter has no concept of groups
of conferences in that sense, but it
does use the UNIX file permissions to
define open and closed classes of
conferences. COM (and most other
conferencing systems) also allows
open, closed, and unlisted con-
ferences. Neither of these systems
support the concept of named groups
of conferences, however.
Below Conferences
Not all conferencing systems have a
named level below conferences (such
as "topics"). They just start right in
with messages, although there is
usually some structure to the way in
which messages are presented. It
seemed logical to us, though, that
within a given conference there
should be the option of dividing
discussion into several areas. One
analogy is of agenda items at a face-
to-face meeting, although with a com-
puter conferencing system, users can
carry out discussion on all the agenda
items almost simultaneously.
This is easy to do in UNIX. We just
implemented each conference as a
directory and the topics as files within
{continued)
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226 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 325
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Inquiry 30
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 227
Inquiry 146
The
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Fox & Geller. Inc. 604 Market St. . Elmwood Park. N J. 07407
STORAGE
that directory. (I am simplifying slight-
ly.) Going this route had the bonus of
making it easy to add attributes to a
conference. Another file could be
added within the conference direc-
tory. The "UNIX-ness" of all this is
transparent to the users, who are
never exposed to the raw system.
COM does not provide for this hier-
archical conference/topic structure.
However, the method COM uses to
store messages and other information
does provide a number of other fea-
tures. COM does most of its own
storage management, relying little on
the underlying operating system. This
is discussed more fully later.
Although Telecenter uses the UNIX
file system— indeed, relies on it
heavily— conferences are not sub-
divided into topics. Possibly the im-
plementers decided that the extra
layer of complexity added to the user
commands was not worth the slight
advantage. On the Guelph CoSy sys-
tem, many conferences have only one
topic, but some have as many as
seven, eight, or even more (there is no
inherent limit).
PARTICIPATE
The PARTICIPATE conferencing sys-
tem (PARTI on The Source) uses a dif-
ferent structuring concept altogether
and allows each note in a conference
the potential to become the root of
another conference, building into a
many-branched tree structure. The
comment structure of messages with-
in a CoSy topic is similar to this, al-
though the branches remain within
the topic and a member of the con-
ference has access to all messages in
all branches. (A new conference can
be formed from them by copying, if
desired.)
The Message Level
Now we get down to the real meat of
a conferencing system: the messages.
It is also here that the differences in
implementation really start to show
up. In Telecenter, for example, each
message is a separate UNIX file.
These are grouped into conferences
following the normal UNIX directory
system. A message can be shared by
two or more conferences by using
UNIX file-system "links," although
there is no user-friendly way to do
this.
Given this implementation, several
things become easy and tempting. For
example, a user's new messages are
links stored in the user's directory,
connecting to the conference mes-
sages, and they are unlinked as they
are read. This makes for a system that
is easy to construct, using existing
UNIX commands and writing the Tele-
center commands as UNIX command
files or execs (called "shell scripts").
It reportedly took Mike Pearson about
one week's programming effort to get
the first version of Telecenter running.
(The CoSy prototype took about six
or seven weeks' worth of program-
ming plus, of course, design, docu-
mentation, and testing time.)
The disadvantages to this approach
lie in the storage overhead of all those
separate files, as well as the program
overhead necessary for command
scripts. While excellent for prototyp-
ing, this method sacrifices some
speed and is portable only to other
UNIX systems.
As mentioned briefly above, COM
does all its own file management and
indeed is almost an operating system
unto itself. COM reserves several large
chunks of file space and then
manages its own "internal" file system
using this space. Several of these files
are used to store such information as
numbers of objects, their names and
their addresses, information and
details about users, etc. (in effect, a
directory).
The most interesting of these files
is the TXT (for "text") file and its
associated OBI and DIR files. Actual
message text and some information
about author and creation date is
stored in the TXT file. More detailed
information about the text (rather
than the text itself) is stored in the OBI
and DIR files, including pointers link-
ing comments together with the texts
they comment on (CoSy handles
these comment pointers differently).
All the relevant information about
record lengths, position in file, and so
Continued)
228
BYTE- DECEMBER 1985
Powerful MS-DOS Software.
For the IBM-PC, XX AT & compatibles with MS-DOS/PC-DOS 2.0 or higher.
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c
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certain to make it a favorite in the classroom as well as with
professional programmers. Package includes diskette, 165-page
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programs. $39.95.
COBOL Application Package, Book 1: $9.95.
UTAH
PASCAL.
Has many advanced features including: 14 digit precision,
BCD math (no round-off errors), floating point + 63 -64,
TRACE debugging, Arrays up to 8 dimensions, 64K strings,
External procedures & Dynamic Module loading. Package
includes diskette & 134-page mannual. $39.95.
PILOT
TM
Written by Prof. J. Starkweather, the language's creator,
Utah PILOT exceeds all PILOT-73 standards. And it has an
integrated full-screen text editor for easy program develop-
ment. Ideal for classroom instruction, business training & home
study. Package includes diskette, 129-page manual & 10 sample
programs. $39.95.
UTAH
EDIT
TM
A full-screen, video-display text editor designed specifically
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only 12K disk space. Package includes diskette & 58-page
manual. $39.95.
UTAH BASIC" $39.95
Package includes diskette & 239-page manual.
BIGPRINT '" DISKETTE $19.95
Great for making signs. Requires 132-print position printer.
UTAH software requires 128K RAM (i.e., 90K user RAM) an IBM-PC, XT AT PCjr, or compatible (16-bit) microcomputer with MS-DOS or PC-DOS Operating
System. Rev. 2.0 or higher. For 8-bit CP/M-80 systems, ask about our NEVADA Software Series.
MS is a trademark ol Microsoft Corp. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines. Corp. Utah COBOL. Utah BASIC. Utah PASCAL. Utah PILOT. Utah EDIT,
BIGPRINT & Ellis Computing. Inc. are trademarks of Ellis Computing. Inc. © 1985 Ellis Computing, Inc.
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED. If for any reason you're not
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Please send me these UTAH Software packages
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□ COBOL □ BASIC □ EDIT
□ PASCAL □ PILOT □ BIGPRINT
Send me (how many) software packages: TOTAL $
Utah COBOL Application Book 1 ; BIGPRINT:
California residents add sales tax (6% or 6V4%)
HANDLING/SHIPPING: no shipping charge within U.S.;
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□ Check □ VISA □ MasterCard
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Oi
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Send my UTAH order to:
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ELLIS COMPUTING, INC.
3917 Noriega Street
San Francisco, CA 94122
Phone (415) 753-0I86
1977
ELLIS COMPUTING :
SINCE 1977
Inquiry 132
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 229
STORAGE
on. is maintained by COM. Additional-
ly. COM buffers file blocks in and out
of core. If a user accesses a particular
message. COM first checks to see if
that block is already in memory. The
use of UNIX provides this buffering
automatically for CoSy and other
UNIX-based systems.
COM's ability to handle files and
messages allows a very flexible file
structure. As in Telecenter, all COM
messages are separate entities that
are linked by pointers to wherever
they belong. Thus, a COM message
can be in several conferences and
several people's mail baskets and
need not be replicated. This saves
storage space and obviates the com-
plications of "copy" and "file" com-
mands to manipulate messages. A
message can be copied to another
conference, or as mail to another user,
just by manipulating links.
On the other hand, the develop-
ment of COM required great effort
since, in effect, a major part of an
operating system (storage allocation,
file buffering) had to be written. An
early version of COM was about
30.000 lines of DEC-10 assembly lan-
guage, and the design-stage estimate
for PortaCOM was 90,000 lines of
Pascal. The CoSy prototype was
about 3000 lines of C excluding the
editor; it is now about 12.000 lines, in-
cluding the editor,
COM also imposes some structure
on the content of messages that is not
present in CoSy or Telecenter but may
be present in other systems. For ex-
ample, most nonprintable ASCII char-
acters are stripped off when text is in-
put, and lines are restricted in length.
Lines are formatted to the user's
desired line length on output, up to
a maximum of 76 characters. This is
perfectly acceptable, even desirable,
in a conferencing system consisting
solely of text messages. However, it
precludes the later incorporation of
graphics messages (messages con-
taining graphics codes or information)
without some serious reprogram-
ming.
CoSy compromises by doing its
own storage management within a
single topic, but it falls back on the
operating system's facilities for other
functions. Thus, a topic is a single file
containing the text of messages as
well as associated information, such
as the author of the message, the date
and time written, and pointer informa-
tion linking comments to the original
message on which they comment (this
pointer information is stored in a
separate file in COM).
In CoSy, a topic file can be viewed
as being made up of variable-length
records, consisting of a fixed "header"
portion containing data about the
{continued}
Concurrent PC DOS Works For These People
"PhoneXpress'", our
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Concurrent PC DOS
offers. Also, our pro-
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can be compiling in
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switch into an editor
which increases pro-
ductivity ."
Dennis King
Executive Vice
President, Founder
Applied Voice
Technology
"The file manager is
great. It's a step
above the old DOS
system. You don't
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commands and you
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John Martinson
Engineer
Pacific Gas
Transmission
"Concurrent PC DOS
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has a true multi-user
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Richard Vananda
Principal
Patrick Sullivan
Associates,
Architects
"I couldn't live
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Time is money and
the ability to switch
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Project Engineer
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"We have created a
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MIS Director
Secoin Inc.
Make It Work For You!
Call (800) 445-* 200 for the dealer or sales representative nearest you.
Concurrent PC DOS is a trademark and Digital Research is a registered trademark of Digital Research Inc. PhoneXpress is
a trademark of Applied Voice Technology
M DIGITAL
RESEARCH
We make computers work.
230
BYTE- DECEMBER 19KS
Inquiry 112
If the Hayes Smartmodem 1200 is smart,
this one is utterly brilliant.
First came the Smartmodem
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Smartmodem 2400.™ It's twice as
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to automati-
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300 bps com-
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tests. It tests the phone line, it
tests remote modems, it even
tests itself. Because the Smart-
modem 2400 features advanced
diagnostics.
Moreover, the 2400 is a smart
communicator. It communicates
with mainframes and minis.
Both synchronous and asyn-
chronous transmissions are sup-
ported by the Hayes standard
command set for 2400 bps. And
you can transmit data to another
room, or another coun-
try because the 2400
meets CCITT interna-
tional standards.
So, if you want to make fast
work of high-volume communica-
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your authorized Hayes dealer for
a look at the Smartmodem 2400.
Now you can be smart, smarter
and smartest all at once.
SMARTMODEM 2400
• Direct connect • Auto-answer/auto-dial
• Bell 103, 212A and CCITT V.22 and V.22
bis compatible • Synchronous or Asynchron-
ous • Full or half duplex • Nonvolatile
memory for communications settings
• Automatic fallback to 1200 or 300 bps
• Voice'data switching • Audio speaker
• Advanced diagnostic tests: analog, digi-
tal and remote digital loopback • Touch
tone or pulse • Automatic adaptive phone
line equalization • Two-wire lease line
capability • Supports single and multi-line
phone systems • Call progress monitoring
SMARTCOM II*
» Sold separately ■ Menu-driven communi-
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and Hayes Verification protocols * VT100/ 102
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Hayes*
Say yes to the future with Hayes.
Inquiry 399
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 231
STORAGE
message (including comment pointers]
and a variable-length "text' portion
containing the actual message.
There are two ways of storing infor-
mation of variable length. One is to
include a "length" field as part of the
record; the other is to have a unique
terminator sequence signifying the
end of the record.
Since I needed a header field any-
way and wanted to speed up scans
through the topic file (by doing a
direct disk seek to the next header
rather than reading sequentially
through the intervening text). I chose
the former method, encoding the text
length as part of the header. This
storage method turned out to have
With the Digi-Data 2000 PC W tape system you can move
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The 2000 PC includes tape drive, PC controller board,
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significant advantages for later
development.
Since there is no special character
indicating the end of a message, there
is no limitation on what data is stored
in a text field of a message. And since
UNIX imposes no structure on user
files either, they can be an arbitrary
stream of bytes. This potentially useful
feature was preserved by not doing
any filtering of what the user entered
as a message. Nonprintable ASCII
characters were left unchanged when
input and instead were converted to
displayable form on output. By pro-
viding an option to turn off this out-
put filtering (and carriage-return inser-
tion for wrapping long text lines), we
automatically created the capability
of storing and sending graphic mes-
sages (or any other byte stream, for
that matter).
The first tests of this technique were
done using Tektronix codes and were
quite successful. The currently sup-
ported code is NAPLPS (North Amer-
ican Presentation-Level-Protocol Syn-
tax), which is an ANSI (American Na-
tional Standards Institute) and inter-
national standard for representing
graphs and images as special text and
picture-drawing instructions. (See the
four-part article by Jim Fleming and
William Frezza, "NAPLPS: A New
Standard for Text and Graphics," in the
February through May 1983 issues of
BYTE for more about NAPLPS.) This
inherent graphics capability would
have been impossible, or at least very
difficult, had we limited ourselves by
imposing any sort of structure as mes-
sages were input, a point in favor of
not imposing limits on yourself until
you have to.
User-Interface Implications
It is the user interface that can make
or break the success and usability of
a system (assuming that the basic re-
quirements of a conferencing system
are present). This has more to do with
careful choice of command vocabu-
lary, wording of prompts and help
files, design of the command parser,
and an intelligent choice of defaults
than it does with the underlying
[continued]
232 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 109
Inquiry 368 — ►
'**W
< 1
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ll ill!
is
TlMl
TJTMy
1 1 1
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IJiH'UH.
1 I 1 1 1
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H
STORAGE
Conferencing-system
users can discuss
multiple subjects
almost simultaneously.
storage architecture.
The particular file-system design can
have more subtle effects. As we've
already seen with the example of ex-
changing graphics via CoSy, the
underlying architecture (in this case,
the storage of message records in the
topic file) can have a significant in-
fluence on how easy or difficult it is
to implement desirable features for
the user. There are other ramifica-
tions, too, in terms of how users cope
with the volume of information avail-
able on a busy conferencing system.
For example, suppose you are a par-
ticipant in two similar but distinct con-
ferences on a given system, and you
have something to say that really fits
both conferences. You may also want
to explicitly mail the same message
to someone who is not participating
in either conference but is a user of
the system.
In COM, this can be done at a single
stroke, because each message or
"text" is stored only once, and all ref-
erences to it (whether from a con-
ference or an individual's mailbox) are
via special pointers. Telecenter also
stores each message as a single
physical entity but uses the UNIX file
system to maintain links or pointers
to the appropriate places.
In the early version of Telecenter
with which I am familiar, there is no
single command to direct a message
to several different conferences at
once: the appropriate links have to be
added later. CoSy does not provide
such a linking mechanism at the mes-
sage level. To place a message in
more than one conference, it has to
be physically copied from one to the
other, increasing slightly the disk
space used. There are, of course, com-
mands to facilitate this copying.
It is possible for a whole topic to be
shared between two or more con-
ferences, with the messages entered
by members of either conference
available to all. In the systems de-
scribed (CoSy. COM, and Telecenter)
the messages entered into a con-
ference (or conference topic) may be
new thoughts, specific references, or
answers to other messages.
In all three systems there is some in-
dication when a given message is in-
deed a reference to or comment on
another message. This contextual in-
formation is very useful— indeed, nec-
essary—if an answering comment con-
sists solely of "I agree" or "No." Tele-
center doesn't go much beyond pro-
viding the number of the original mes-
sage, but both CoSy and COM let you
know, when you are reading a mes-
sage, if there are any comments or
responses to it. This is useful when
reading an item that asks a question.
It is helpful to know if anyone else has
responded yet; if so. you may not
need to bother answering.
COM and CoSy also provide ways
for reading all the responses to a mes-
sage before reading the next
chronologically entered message.
Other systems have similar mecha-
nisms for handling messages and
responses. In PARTICIPATE, for exam-
ple, any message may have comments
to it, forming a tree structure of com-
ments, comments to comments, and
so on. Any such message may
become the root of a whole new con-
ference with its own name.
CoSy also supports trees of com-
ments to comments, but to start a new
conference (or topic) at an arbitrary
point, the relevant branches must be
explicitly copied. In my opinion this
keeps the system as a whole easier to
manage and is perhaps less bewilder-
ing for users.
PicoSpan. developed by Marcus
Watts, is another UNIX-based con-
ferencing system. However, the struc-
ture of its messages and comments
is perhaps more like a comb than a
tree. In a PicoSpan conference, there
can be sequential messages, called
"items," with a number of "responses"
to each. The user has the option of
reading the responses before going
on to the next message, as in COM
or CoSy. However, in PicoSpan the
responses are handled differently
than the base-level sequential mes-
sages, and there is no additional level
of branching. Hence, it has a comb
structure, with the base- level mes-
sages, or items, forming the spine of
the comb, and the responses forming
the teeth. In some respects this can
be viewed as a hypothetical CoSy
conference in which any participant
can add a new topic, and members
are only allowed to comment on the
first message in a topic.
Summary
In this top-down comparison of con-
ferencing systems I've illustrated some
of the different trade-offs and com-
promises involved in designing sys-
tems that are intended for a broad au-
dience. I've also shown how different
decisions about data-storage me-
thods (the storage architecture) can
have later implications on what can or
cannot be easily done in terms of
adding new features or subsystems to
existing programs.
I'm sure many of you have had to
make a change in a program and
thought, "Darn, if I'd done it that way
instead, it would have been so easy."
Or, if you're lucky or exceptionally far-
sighted, "Gee, I'm glad 1 did it this way,
this new feature just slides right in."
Any system design involves com-
promises. The decisions made gen-
erally depend more on the intended
users and usage than any absolute
scale of "good" or "efficient" design.
It is always a good idea to keep the
maximum number of options open
for as long as possible. ■
REFERENCES
1. Palme. Jacob, Stefan Arnborg, Lars
Enderin. Carl Meyer, and Tbrgny Tholerus.
"The COM Teleconferencing System Func-
tional Specification." FOA Report C
I0164-M6(H9). File COMSPE.VIP. revised
October 22, 1980. QZ. Stockholm Univer-
sity Computing Center.
2. Pearson, Michael M. L.. and James E.
Kulp. "Creating an Adaptive Computerized
Conferencing System on UNIX." Laxen-
burg, Austria: International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis, 1981.
234 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Unlock powerful software
with the power of speech.
•y
^H
"OPEN MY MAIL"
"OPEN SALES DATA BASE"
"PRINT SALES BY TERRITORY'
"GET STOCK QUOTES"
CALL MICROPHONICS"
"EDIT LETTER"
1
No matter what software you use. Pronounce will
make you a power user.
You're just one phone call from the most
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Pronounce™ speech input system from
Microphonics™
No matter what PC software you use,
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In plain English or in any other language,
you can create spreadsheets, perform
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Anyone can use
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put voice recognition to
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new applications of
tomorrow. If you are ■**
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the system into almost
anything you want."
-PC Magazine, October 1, 1985
Inquiry 243
Like typing at the
speed of sound.
A simple statement like "revise the two-
year forecast" can replace up to 255 key-
strokes like these:
(Home) (down) (down) (down) (down) (down) (right)
(F2)* 1.1 (enter) (right) (F2)* 1.1 (enter) (right) (F2)*
1.1 (enter) (right) (F2)* 1.1 (enter) (right) (F2)* 1.1
(enter) (right) (F2)* 1.1 (enter) (right) (F2)* 1.1 (enter)
(right) (F2)* 1.1 (enter) (right) (F2)* 1.1 (enter) (right)
(F2)* 1.1 (enter) (right) (F2)* 1.1 (enter) ogbcqv
Unconditional
money-back guarantee.
Order now and Microphonics will give
you one of the programs listed
at right. Pronounce comes with a
30-day unconditional money-
back guarantee. If you are not
100% satisfied, return
Pronounce and the free
software within 30 days
for a full refund. Major
credit cards and CODs
1 accepted.
1-800-325-9206
Microphonics Technology Corporation, 234 S.W. 43rd
Street, Renton, WA 98057, Telephone (206) 251-9009,
Microphonics
"•k
n K
Order now
for free software.
Order Pronounce at only $695
before December 31, 1985 and
Microphonics, the leader in speech
recognition products, will give you
your choice of these major software
programs. Absolutely free.
With SuperCalc3™ and Sidewa vs-
a $395 value, free.
A powerful spreadsheet package
that combines, graphics, data
management and a text editing, all
on one disk.
Or.. .With Enable-a $695 value, free .
A fully integrated, five-function soft-
ware program with spreadsheet, word
processing, graphics, data base man-
agement and telecommunications.
Or... With StyleWriter-
a $199 value, free.
StyleWriter™ is a unique 64K buffer
with an array of type styles and sizes
that upgrades your matrix printer to
letter quality.
DECEMBER I985 -BYTE 2J5
ELECTRONICS I
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
^ltiTW
ELECTRONICS 1
Commodore Accessories I ***** APPLE ■ Accessories *****
RS232 Adapter
for VIC-20 and
Commodore 64
The JE232CM allows connection of standard serial RS232
printers, modems, etc. to your VIC-20 and C -64. A 4-pole
switch allows the inversion of the 4 control lines. Com-
plete installation and operation instructions included.
• Plugs into User Port • Provides Standard RS232 signal
levels • Uses 6 signals (Transmit, Receive, Clear to Send,
Request to Send, Data Terminal Ready, Data Se! Ready)
JE232CM $39.95
VOICE SYNTHESIZER
FOR COMMODORE VIC-20 AND C-64
Plug-In — Talking in Minutes!
JE520CM. /NEW Software-see right) . $99.95
TRS-80 Accessories
JkZMk MPI 5V« DISK DRIVE
JBStm^amWmW ' Use as a seconc5 a,sk drive ' Smgle-
WTAa^V sided - Single'double density * Full-
^Vfl ^L\W height drive ■ 48 Tpl • Documentation
^^^^^ included ■ Weight 3 7 lbs
MPI51S $69.95
EXPAND TRS-80 MEMORY
TRS-80 MODEL I, III
Each Kit comes complete wilh eight MMS290 (UPD4 16/411 61 1 6K Dynamic
RAMs and Oocu mental. on tot conversion Model' 16K equipped with Ei-
oanvon interlace can be expanded to 43* with 2 Kits Model III Can be
expanded trom 16k to ASK using 2 Kits Each Kit mil enpand computer by
16K increments
TRS-16K3 200ns (Model III) $5.95
TRS-16K4 250ns (Model 1) $5.49
TRS-80 COLOR AND COLOR II
Easy 10 install Kit comes complete with 8 each 4164N-20 .200ns: 64K
Dynamic RAMs and documentation tot conversion Concerts TRS-80 Cotor
Computers with D E ET F ana NC circuit boards to 32K Also converts
TRS-90 Color Computer II to 64K Fie> DOS or OS-9 required lo utttoe
fun 64K RAM on all computers
TRS-64K-2 $9.95
Update! TRS-80 MODEL IV, 4P Update!
Easyto install Kits come completewith TOS-64K-Zf6ea 4l64N-20<2OOns)
64K Dynamic RAMsl. TRS-64K 2PAL (8 ea 41 64s plus PAL chip) and docu-
mentation tor conversion
TRS-64K-2 Expand! Model IV trom 1 6K-64K or Model IV
I 4P from 64K-128K (w/Mtun. Disk). ... $ 9.95
TRS-64K-2PAL Expands Modal IV (w/Bfack S White
Monitors only) tram 64K to 128K S29.95
•TRS-80 Model 100 • NEC •Olivetti
Easy to install Module plugs right into the socket increasing memory in 8K
increments Three modules will increase your memory to its lull capacity.
Complete wilh module and documentation lor installation
Ml OOBK (TRS-SO Model 1 00 Expansion) S29 95 aa. or 3/979.95
NEC8KR (NECPC-M01A) $29.95 aa or 3/S79 95
OM10M (OttvMiMlO) S29 95 aa or 3/S79 95
TANDY 200
Easy to insiaii module plugs right into the socket increasing memory in
24K increments Complete with module and documentation lor installation
M200R Handy 200 rUpanwon). . . $99.95 ea. or 2/S189.95
PROMETHEUS MODEMS
Intelligent 1200/300
Baud Modem with Real
Time Clock/Calendar
The ProModem is a Bell 212A (1200/300) intelligent
stand-alone modem ■ Hayes command set compatible
plus an additional extended command set • Shown with
alphanumeric display option
PM1200 RS-232 Stond-Alone Unit $299.95
OPTIONS FOR ProModem 1200
PM-COM (ProCom Communication Software!. ... $ 79.95
Please specify Operating System -
Apple ProOOS or CP'M - or
IBM PC DOS or MS DOS
PM-OP512K .Communication flutter Option) $129.95
BUF512K B12K Memory for PM-OP512K) S 54.95
PM-ALP Alphanumeric p.splayi $ 79.95
PM-Special*2 .include* pv-ops'2k
DATA BOOKS
REfe
210830 Intal Memory Component* HnrJbk. [1983/84) $14.95
Contains all Apphcations Soles Article Reprints Data Sheets i other
Oevyn information on Intel's RAMs DRAMs EPROMs E'PROMs and
BuOPW Memonw 1880 pagesi „_
230843 Intel Microsystem Components H
30022 National Logic Data Book Sat (1984) S24.95
WMumes I S It i3*85 pages!
Contains inhumation on National's TTL product Nne and CO4000 Smiry
This .ndudes 7400. 74L S. AS LS and ALS Series demces and
MM54HC T*HC i 54HCT ' 74HCT High Speeo Micro CMOS family,
Muffin-Style & Sprite-Style Fans
MUF60 (SPN3-1 5-2462)
Howard Industries 14 68"sq 60cfml. . . . $9.95
SU2C7
EGSG Rolron (3 125 sq 32clm) S9-95
2 A *
Sl=l5jJHlm-!&lb-
Ht?ttoM«M&ls
FhmKn 128K RAM Card
Prognrnm! For Apple II. II+ and lie'
it JEMS ■ lunclionaNy compatible with me Apple I ia"guJ"«
ilirimd with all software that can be used with a standard i&*
■es no modilicalKms to your Apple compuler f«e liey solhK
led Memory Management System utilities diagnostics dem.
rlorstor DOS 33 CP'M and Aon* Pascal Al so features DOS ie
JE868 (Ejtpand-A-RAM) S119.95
Applesurance Diagnostic Disk Controller Card
Pravwrts Crashes! For Apple II, II + and He'
disk drive controller The JE877 will verity and check <he operating hardware ol
your system each lime you lurn on your Apple II II * or He' Test your RAM ROM
CPU and disk drives Diagnoslic routines may be cancelled al the louch o< a key
JE877 {DRV-1 /Applesurance II) $69.95
Parallel Printer Card
For Apple II II + and lie'
the JCBB0 Prmtei interlace board is an intelligent interlace to most ol today i
popular dot-malrir graphic s printers Ihe J£ 880 >s luliy-omrjatibte with Apple CP V
mi
other i
packages available lor Apple II n - and De ' The JEB80 is sh.pped conhgured to' the
Centronics standard and can be reconfigured lor other standards it necessary
Advanced let printing teatures include video screen ec»>0 ON or OfF aulo d>SabW
linefeed alter carnage return set clear the Sth brt or the output data set let margin
and more 1 Complete with instructions
JE880 (PBT-1) S59.9S
Parallel/Serial Buffer Card
For Apple II. II ■ and lie'
13 prowdes the user *
< additional or puttered memory ' '8 pages
Pie supplied the JE883 will attach to Ihe
eralion The JE883 includes a standard
i :RS212- Outlefed outputs With these
JE883 (P/S Buffer) $79.95
Jameco's New 1966 Catalog!
Filled with New Products, Reduced Pricing
and Valuable Pin-out Data.
Send $1 Postage for FREE 1986 Jameco Catalog!
i Order - U.S Funds Only CA Residents Add 6* or 6<iH Sates Tai Spec Sheets - 30* each
Shipping Add 5^ ptus SI 50 Insurance Send SI Postage for «*fF ■ 986 Jameco Caferog Pnces Subract to Change
Saner i
MasterCard
J a
■ J I J*,.;M 7TTga
VISA'
1355 SHORE WAY ROAP, BELMONT. CA 94002
12/85 PHONE ORDERS WELCOME - (415) 592-8097 - Telex: 176043
IBM" Accessories
GIVE YOUR COMPUTER
**< A GIFT THIS SEASON...
* A VOICE!
Voice Synthesizers for Apple, Commodore, IBM & RS232 Computers
: - o. J£L«on |- JE520 VOICE SYNTHESIZER
J^ Software ^^ FOR COMMODORE 64. VIC-20 - APPLE II, II+. /at
.-£— -r Available! ^*~ Add speech capability to your Commodore 64 or vtC-20 Apple
^.j. ^. II, M- «e computer wilh JAMECO s JES20 Series Voice Synthe-
r\ aA AAA r A AA k, K^V\ slle ' Speech the most effective means ol communication
' /'|/r " /»y v MilN\ avertable to man is now immediately available tor your computer
f , ^^^^ajaa^H * Education - Entertainment ■ Instrumentation
ytXCE SYNTMtstZTR ^Lmmm ' t ^ amet ' Telecommunications Handicap Aids
^^k ^B JESM Features
^^HJ i More than 2S0 basK words prefiMes suitines which altovr
■■F ^^^ m* tormahon ot we* over WC toiai -jrdi
JB^H^HF g ^\ Allow* music graphics and speech vmuitaneouiiy
AwLmmmW^^^aW MaWWr Proorwu «> BASK i™i .» a»«-c»'
%| vw
-.aj-, JCS23 (Appkt) ■ Rug-in u
a^easaa. kTCT«C£ M DUU sample sorrwera
very clear natural male voice The outstanding speech Quality is produced using
JES21 I Commodore) National Semiconductor s Dig i talker '* speech processor IC with lour JAMECO custom
interface mooule memory chips Case sue 7vl > 3'."W » ivh Weight 1 lb
pAnttso COMMODORE 64 or V IC-20
JE520CM Voice Synthesizer for Commodore 64 or VIC-20 includes JE5?i interface Module S 99.95
JE521TS >< t-tc Speech Program tor Commoctore 64 or VIC-20 ,5'i-Dw*) $ 9.95
JES21 Comrnootore Interface Module S 19.95
APPLE II, 11+ and//©
JE520AP Voice Synthesizer tor Apple II. II- or .re .includes J€523 interlace Modutei $119.95
JE523TS Text-to-Speech Program tor Apple II. 11+ or /to 5. [>sn $ 9,95
JE523 Apple Interlace Module S 39 95
/*j# r JE520 VOICE SYNTHESIZER
faT '"'"Hl'lllllln ™- 'BM OR ^RS23 2 COMPUTER
^ Wm "Mllll \ ^he same teatures as listed above The jE52S interface Module
. allows the JES20 Series voice Synthesuer to be interlaced
^•as^ --- with most popular microcomputers wrfh the use ot Ihe standard
& RS232 port and logic levels The JE525 Interlace Module -i
powered 'roma weNtranstormer Sample program is mcbdedm
... the User Manual
/lift ) ) I JE52S Intarfaca Module Features
////'•'' / - ley nomr-abte
/ f // 'I aawaaaBB* ' ° P ' M Como ^ ,tM *
Iff/ fijIPIfL, - It"" ON indicator
-eai^51aBBT
JE5Z0 VOICE SYNTHESIZER ^VMHP^- Indicators tor OTI or DCI modes
WITH JE525 (IBM oi EQUV.) WPPW"
RS232 INTERFACE MOOULE 'T* ^ ' Standard DB25 female connector
piuono IBM or Computers with RS232
JE520IBM Voice Synthesizer (or IBM or RS232 Computer* iincimii.-. JEW5 ini.ii.ice Moduli". $199.95
JE525TS Text-to-Speech Program tor IBM [Sw Disk I S 9.95
JE525 IBM/RS232 Interlace Module S1 19.95
NEW! QUALITY APPLE new,
COMPATIBLE CARDS
For Apple II, 11+ and lie*
IBM PC/XT Compatible
Keyboard
I .1 I I I J l_l L I I II I 11 « 11
mmm
IBM-5151 lEguivaieni to fueyfronics 51SH
$129.95
Additional Add-Ons Available!
MEMORY EXPANSION KITS
IBM PC, PC XT and Compatibles
The l8Mt>4r< Kit will increase memory in 64K Dyte increments The Kil is simple
to install - iust insert the 9 64K RAM Chios m the provided sockets and se!
the 2 groups ol switches ConvwrsKyi rjocu mentation included
IBM64K (Nine 200ns 64K RAMs) S7.95
IBM PC AT
mplete with nine 1 28K dynamic RAMs and i
IBM128K (Nine 200ns 128K RAMs). . $43.95
Each kit comes <
lfaatari
IBM PC XT Equivalent
130 Watt Power Supply
UPGRADE YOUR PC!
Input 1 10V • 60Hz- Output: +5VDC @ 15A. -5VDC @
5A. +1 2VDC • 4 2A. - 1 2VDC i 0.5A • Plug compatible
connectors • Fits into IBM PC • Weight: 6 lbs.
IBM-PS $99.95
Prometheus Modems
The ProModem 1200B/BS is a 1200/300 baud modem
card which plugs into IBM PC and XT Provides a third
serial Comport Two versions available: 1200B (without
software) and 1200BS (with software) The PM1200BS
is supplied with powerful MITE communications software
from Mycroft Labs Software available: PC DOS or MS DOS.
PM1200B (without Software) $239.95
PM1 200BS (with MITE Software) $274.95
ibM , e . DISK DRIVES
Documentations-
Included
RFP4S0 (Retnex SV DS tull-ht > $69.95
FD55B (Teac 5V DS hall-ht.) $99.95
SA455 (Shugarl 5V DS half-tit.). . . . $99.95
TM100-2 (Tandon 5 V DS tull-ht ) $99.95
JMR 5 1 A DISK DRIVE ENCLOSURES
Complete with power supply, switch, power cord.
fuseholder and connectors
DDE-1FH IHouwsl tull-ht SV torn dnvei . . $ 69.95
DDE-2HH mouses 2 hai!-hi 5V - _. .
tlopoy drives - vertical) $ /9.95
HDDE-1FH iko u „, i MdM $199.95
General Application Keyboards
Mitsumi 54-Key
Unencoded
Keyboard
PS1 :
■ SPST keyswitches • 20 pin ribbon cable connection
■ Low profile keys • Features: cursor controls, control,
caps (lock ), function, enter and shift keys • Color (key-
caps): grey • Weight 1 lb • Pinout incl. ■ Size: 13'% "l x
4VWxVH
KB54 $9.95
^^^^{1^/1^+
74-Key
ASCII
Cherry
Keyboard
■ 7-bit parallel ASCII • Full Upper Case. Full Lower Case
except I, m, n, o and p * Cursor keypad ■ SPST mechani-
cal keyswitches • 26-pin header connector • Color: white
• Size 18"L x 6'VW x IVH • Spec included
KB8201 {1 500 available) $14.95
UV-EPROM ERASER
8 Chips - 21 Minutes |
i 1 Chip -15 Minutes
Erases all EPROMs Erases upto 8 Chips within 21 minutes 1 1 chip
m 1 5 minutes) Maintains constant exposure distance otone inch
Special conductive foam liner eliminates static build-up Built-in
safety lock to prevent UV exposure Compact - only 9 00"L x
3 70"W x 2 60"H Complete with holding tray tor 8 chips
DE-4 UV-EPROM Eraser $74.95
UVS-11EL Replacement Bulb $17.95
236 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry I9l
mnsm
ELECTRONICS
NEW LOW, LOW PRICES!!! J
mssaa
ELECTRONICS
CALL FOR QUANTITY DISCOUNTS l SPECIAL!! SPECIAL!! SPECIAL!!
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MC14572
*> MOTOflOL
IP
MC68701 - Microcomputer with EPROM
The MC68701 is an 8-bil single chip microcom outer unit (MCU) which sigmticantiy
enhances the capabilities of the MC6800 tamily of parts. On-chip resources include
2046 bytes ot EPROM, 128 Bytes Ol RAM, Serial Communications Interface (SCI).
parallel I/O, and a three function Programmable Timer
MC68701 S24.95
CUSTOM COMMODORE CHIPS
for VIC-20. C-64 and C-1 28 Personal Computers
Prtc* ^rt Wo. Dm crtpMon
'6510 CPU $19.95
•6525 TPI $20.95
-SPECS AVAILABLE % SI SO EA.
Pr.ce P»n Mo. Descnpdor.
'6526 CIA. $25.95
■6560 VIC-I $29.95
•6567 V1C-II $44.95
.^IMzMd.Wtj^W-IgiT
MICROPROCESSOR CHIPS
0765AC
CWiBOTCt-
2661-3
■ I ■:,
2H.
Z80-CTC
ZStHMRI
:- :■■■■
28O-P10
zeo-sio'0
Z80-S10M
;bo-sio/2
,'FilJ-S)l|.":l
;soa
280A-CTC
noMm
.'■■■MA :IMA
ZBQA-P10
aoMian
/itliASHJ I
/KiiASHK'
Z80AS10'9
;«!« bin u
/r-ilH SIN !
/mm si*) ;■
40 Floppy Disk ContiCfci
40 CPU25MH;
21 ami UuRiptewi & Refresh Counter
-ZW.Z80A.Z8QB. SEMES
40 CPUIt«CS8tnii780Q25MHi
21 Counter Timet Cue jit
40 Dual Asynchronous flee Trans
40 Oiteci Memory Access Ocwl
40 Par^ibei i.O imertace ConmXIei
40 Serai i'O rf<CB and R>CB BonOMI
40 Sena I'O (Lacks DTBBi
40 Serial |<C ILacks SVNCBl
all/0
l|4MHt
CPJIMK3880N-4
CounW Timer Cir
Dual Asynchronous Rec (Trans 525
Diiecl Memory Access Cucutl 5 95
Parallel I'O interface Controller 1.95
Serial I'O (TiCe anO R»CS aondedi 525
Serial I/O ILkW 0TRB). 5.25
Serial I/O lLacks SYNCB) 525
Serial l/G 5.25
CPU IMK3680N-6) 6MHz 3.95
Counter Timer Circuit 4.95
Dual Asynchronous Rec ffrans 695
Parallel i '0 imertace Controller 495
Ser l<0 ifrCB&iWa Both HMK3884-6) 1295
Senai it) iLacMDTRBi 1285
12 79
(KB
I S024
r,',:>(j
>-'■.:.■■
6860
680OOL8
eoesA
BOBSA.2
S0B6-2
40 MPU «W CWc* ,2MHri
40 MPU win Dock (3WU)
40 Peripheral Inter Adapter
40 Versatile inter Adapter
41 CRI Controller 'CRTCi
21 Async Cnmm menace Adapt
40 MPU
40 MPU wim Clock and RAM
40 CPU - 8 ftt lOn-Crap Osc*a»|
40 CPU - 8ftt lEitemal Clocking)
40 CPU - B-Bit (En Ckxkmgi 2MW
24 128»B State HAM
24 128^ Stanc RAM i2MHii
40 Penpherai tain. Adapt iMC6820i
40 (¥npherai miertace Adaotei <2MH.)
21 Programmable Timer
40 Progranrnabie Floppy De* ConhHer
40 CRT Controller (CflTCl
40 OT Contra* iCflTO 2MK.
24 Asyncnronous Comm AOaptet
24 Synchronous Serial Data Adapter
24 O-6OO00S 6gitai MCOEM
14 MPU <&84 18MH71
41 6eM0 Puroose w Adapw
8255
8255A-5
8257 5
B2H
— 8000' 80000 SERIES
40 Control Oienlea CPU w RAM f. 1
40 CPU wJSaSK Msro merpreter
40 CPU
40 CPU
40 CPU 8-Btt N-Channei|5MHil
40 CPU 16-W BMHi
40 Anmmetic Processor |5Mrt»
40 Arithmetic Processor
40 CPU6.16-B1I
IB Dim Baud Rale Generator
40 HMOS RAM 1 '0 Port- Timer
40 HAM with 1/0 Port and Timer
40 Dynamic RAM Controller
40 64K Dynamic RAM Controller
IB Hi Speed 1 out ot 8 Binary Decoder
24 8 Bit Input/Output I74S412)
IB Clock Generator /Drrvei
28 Sys Corn 'Bus Drner |74S428)
40 High Pert Piog DMA Coot (5MHi|
21 System Controller (74S43S)
24 I/O Expander tot 48 Series
40 Async Comm Etemenl
40 ACE (IBM PC or XT Software Ctimpaiible)
21 Prog Comm I/O (USART)
21 Piog Comm Interface (USART 1
24 Programmable Interval Timer
24 Programmable interval Timet
40 Prog Peripheral I'D iPPI)
40 Prog Penpherai I/O iPPI> 5MHj
40 Prog DMA Controller
21 Prog Interrupt Control
7m Prog interrupt Controller
249
„jl Sehal Coni (720H 14.95
Prog C«T Controller 14.95
Prog Keytmarilt>spiay menace Z49
Prog Keyooara/Disoiay infcrtace 2 95
Octal Latch 395
Oock Generatni 'Driver 2.95
Octal Bus franscerve" 395
Octal Bus yanscener itnvenedl 395
Bus Controller 4.95
BusArorKr . 1495
■fj-ai Urw. Peripheral tnlenace B.9S
mwosbummpu 795
Mf\j 8-tkt lEPBOM version ol 8049) 995
CPU -'4X.8 EPBOM S '28*8 RAM 2995
MM EPROM wm WJ 1495
Hoh mtegtabon 16-Btt MPU 4995
rkghlrt»gra 16-EVt MPU 1S-B1T Data Bus! 4995
Numeric Processur E<t 22995
6581 SID $32.95
82S1 OOPLA PLA . . $37.95
MOTE: 82S10O ■ U17 (C-64)
i^: : i ^ ;itt
OYMMIC RAMS
4027
4H6V15
4116N-20
412B
4164W-150
4164N-2O0
TMS4416 12
MM5261
MWITir
ma "■.
WMf. f 'Wi
MHttOsVS
8118
41256' 150
-i:.-Ui:-'tj0
50464-15
4096>i
16.384.:
t6.384.i
■ ■■ ■ ■
65.536i 1
65,536.t
16.384i4
10241 1
2048.1
4096.1
4096, t
8192.1
i 300ns j
i250nsi
H50ns)
1200ns)
j200ns)
1150ns)
I200ns)
(120nsi
1300ns)
i365ns)
I250nsl
I200nsi 2107
(20Dns)
ll20ns)i*5VOnryfleQ.I
■I50ns)
(200ns)
(150nsl(4t2S4||4 14641
TMM2016-12 24
2114NL
21I4N-2
2114N-2L
2ICI4
2I16N-25L
2125A
2147HN
2148HN
2149
27LS00
TMS40U7.45
5101
MM5257
HMGI16P-3
HM6itaP-3
HM6264P-12
HM6264LP-12
HM6264P 15
HM6264LP-15
1702A
WBZ II
•v-,.- .
■ ■.' ■ ■.
2708
TMS27I6
2716
27C16
,v;f,-
2732
; 73JA ,'u
t7 ai . i
2732A-45
27C32
2758
2764-20
2764 25
1 tW H
2764-45
27C64
27128 25
;'712bA l H
27256-25
27C256 25
68764
■*.'".
'-1S,'I '
.MSi'f.r
"4S38T
74S471
■ ■:s-::.'
74S473
74S474
74S475
.-■iS-1.-'.
.'JS 1 ..'
4SV
.-IS!.,'.
/■IS'v :
82S23
B2S115
82S123
S2S126
82S129
H.'Sfil
VSi-r
82S19I
■V(i.--.'-"j
1024x1
256.4
256x4
1024x4
1024.4
1024x4
1024x4
4096.1
1024x4
1024.4
256x1
1024.4
256)4
4096.1
2048x8
2048)8
|12CnS).
iJSUns H10I .
BSOntf
..".un,.! P'9tL02)
. 1-. ;,,■... il-
1450ns) M0S
450ns
(450ns) LP
(200ns)
1200ns) LP
1200ns) iCMOSl
(250nsiLPNM0S
i4',nsi Mign Speed
(70ns)
|70ns)
(45ns).
IBOns) LP
<450nsl
l450ns|CMOS
1450ns) 4044
|t50nsiCM0S
HSOnslLPCMOS
(200nslCMOS
1200ns) LP CMOS
(t20nslCM0S
it20nsiLPCM0S
rtSOnSlCMOS
rt50nsiL.PCMOS
i350nslCM0S(UPO444C)
16.4 3Snji .:■■:■
-PROMS EPR0MS
Ml
8192.6
1024.8
2048)8
2048.8
2048.8
2048.8
40%.r
1024.8
8192.B
8192.8
8192.8
8)92.8
8192.8
16.384.6
t6,384.fl
32.768.8
32.768.H
8192.8
B192.8
32.8
?'«,-■■
512.8
512.8
1024.4
512x4
.'Mi.-l
250x4
512.4
2048)4
HEM
I W .- : .
(450ns)
(450ns|
i450ns} 3 voltage
<450nsl
CMOS
(350nsi
(450ns)
1200ns) 21V
(?50ns) 21V
(450ns| 2 w
CMOS
l 450nsi Single -5V
(200ns) 21V
<250nsl 21V
(250nsil25V
<450nsl 21V
CMOS 21V
J250ns|128K21V
i250nsi!28K 12.5V
t250nsl256K(14V)
(250nsl 256K tCMOSi
(450nsl 25V
(35uns) 25V
PROMOC (6330-1)
PROMTS (6301-11
PROMTS (6331-11
PROMOC 16300-11
PROM T.S (6309-1)
PROMTS (6349-1)
PROMOC 16348)
PROM TS (DM87S296NI
PROMOC (6340)
PROM TS
PROMO.C (6305)
PROMTS (63061
PROMOC (6352).
PROMTS IB2SI37I
PROMOC |27S18|
PROM TS (27S15)
PROMTS . (27S19).
PROM 0C (27S20).
PROM TS. I27S21J
PROMOC (27S12J
•MUM l:i .I9P24S81I
> Prtfile (Tin) Soc-wS
» 14) IW IBM
BptnlP
MpMiLP
1 6 pm LP
18 pm LP
20 ptn LP
22pnLP
24 pei LP
Solderttil I Go id I Standard
tmtlU. 10 1MB IBM
SpxnSG 39 35
14 pm SG 49 45
16 pn SG 55 49
IBpnSG 65 59
20 p«n SG 75 65
22 pm SG 79 69
24 pm SG 79 89
28p»5G 95 85
36pmSG 125 115
40pnSG 139 125
.■.IH.uh.ii
At ■cr.i«i i ■
■•'. ■<:■>■. -
■.; CL.ti..-i
:,).rii......
■,-■:,. >'■■
AOC0817
A:iCt:ru
OACO807
: 3m
DAC0630
: AC:>V
A:.'. AX
. A^ ■ :'if
■Ac-o,-;
r 'A--';:-.-
L:AL'^
DAC'231
AV -3- 10150
Ay 5-iOt 3A
1024x8 PROMTS (S2S181)
- DATA ACQUISITION
8-Bit AiO Converter (*1 LS8)
8-Bit A/ D Convener (V4LSB)
8-ftl A.0 Converter I • tf2LS8>
8-Bit At) Converter (1LS81
B-Bit «VD Conv *t8- Channel Analog
8-Btt AjO Converter l8-Cn MulD.l
9-Bi! A'TJ Conv *.T6-Cname Anakx
B-ftt A.0 Converter ..16-Ch Mufti j
8-Bit Set VO Art) Conv (2,4, or B-Qi Ii
B-ftt D'A Convener I - USB)
i-b-. D a Cm ■
8-ftt DM Convener (*.,. ._
8-ftt Up DM Conv (OS'HLm)
8-Bn Up A Conv i 10V Lm i
i0-ai D.A Conv Men Comp (0.05H!
8 Bn DA Conv Mrcro Como (0 20-.I
10-rfcl O-'A Conv. (02O«ii knl
12-arOAConv |02O»cLmt
1 2-B4 Up LVA Con* 1 01 7** Lm I
l2-WupD'AConvi024%Lfli
29 BMUMI
30K 6wd UART (TR16021
OcmWW 65 59
4p.nWW 69 65
Header Plugs |UW|
rVIH 10
:JW
■«-
14 pmh* 1 55
16 on KP 59
24 pm HP 99
a
89
49
24cxnM
28 pm*
36peiA
Hejotf Ceven
nHC 15 13
$20 Minimum Order - US Funds Only CA Rextidentt: Ml 6S or 6' -,-, Sale* Ta. Sc*c Stv«*ts - 30* »cn
Shipping: Add 5% due XI 50 Infwjrance Se«dS1 Rootage for FREE >988 Jameco Caratog Pncaa Subject toCrvang*
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ameco
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1355 SHOREWAY ROAD, BELMONT CA 94002
12/85 PHONE ORDERS WELCOME - (415) 592-3097 - Telex: 176043
EEPROM
2816A 24 2048x8 16KE 2 PR0M 350ns. $8.95
Feature, • Otvboard Addreae/Dat* Latchej • Auto-r.med Byte Write Ion
Chio timer) - SV Eraae.'Wr.ie Read < Optional High Voltage Eraaa /Program
(9V-1SV) ■ Power Up/Down Write Prote cti on ■ Auto Enwe betora Whte
The 2816A it an ideal nonvolatile memory providincj m-system alteraDititv
Digitalker
a sWWarrj WGTTALKER kit encMM witn 137
* ^Kaar Om HaSllM |40aa|
DT1050 Digitalker" $24.95 ea.
MM541 04 Processor Chip $1 2.95 ea.
DT1 057-IimMi *0T10Mi*>M»irti.l3Tiiiw2W all *l ? 1Mb Mw.
Part No. DT1057 $11.95 ea.
INTERSIL
FEO2020
K
4 Oigil LCD Diipay tor 721t(PL & 72UMIPL
FFO2030
m
Jtq Dnjii LCD Dripiay tor 7106 & 7116
12.95
7045IPI
H
1195
7045EV10I
,!
Swpwaicn Chip. XTL i Evaluation ton
1695
71B6CPL
895
?106EV'Kil
Ill
IC. Cucuil Board, Displiry (Evalualion Kit)
4695
7107CPL
411
3 1 : Digit AtD (LED Drive)
895
7107EVKH
40
IC. Circuii Board. Display (Evaluation Kit)
4695
7116CPL
111
J>l Digit a ;-j LCD Dis HLD
895
720HUS
Low Ballery Volt Indicatot
2.29
7205IPC
24
CMOS LED Stop*atch(TmYar
14 96
7205EVtKil
,'t
Stopwatch Chip. XTL (Evaluation Kit)
1695
7206CJPE
11
Tone Generator
4 95
7206CfWKil
II
lone Genetalm Chip. XTL (Evalualion Kit)
795
7207AIPD
14
Oscillator Conlroller
595
7207AEV(Krl
14
f-i-., - .■■-■ ■' ,. -- F,aliiiiti(inK,ll
649
7211 IPC
40
.11',,'.' ,.- ',■ i -,..,■, ITL ■ mi. ..:■;, i.-.
795
22 1 1 MlPt
H
4 Cvgii LCD Drwury Decoder 'Dnver (Micrnpioc cOmpal 1
849
7215IPG
?i
1695
72!5EV7Ki!
24
11,.. ■,/.-'■ ' . 'li. -. . M...I':. r ■ 11
1949
.Vli-.AU'
?fl
a Dirjil Umv Counter CA
3149
72I6D1PI
!i
BDnjitFieq Counter CC
2149
721 7U
n
4 Dnjrt liD Up/Down Counter CA
1095
721 7AIPI
n
4 Uitjit LED Up'Down Counter CC
895
7224IPL
in
LCO 4'v r»n Up Counter DAI
1095
.'226AEV H
•
5 Function Counter Ch« XTL (Evaluation Kiti
9995
30009 1985 Intersil Data Book
$9.95
74HC HIGH SPEED CMOS
'IK.,'
>4H ■ -
74HC04
74HCU04
74HCOS
MHC1I
r4HC1l
flCH
■■■■• ;
.i"... ■
P4HC3
■l"Cr
P4W C
>4M ■ ■
■4MC-X
r4HC7J
■we -j
'4K
74HC76
.'-tree'.
?4HC86
74HC107
74HC1LW
74HC112
74HC123
74MC125
74MC132
74HC137
74HC138
74C00
■!■- :.:
■4i:w
;4CL>(
74C10
.-jr. i j
■■ir:
.-■iCKi
74C32
l ■■:,
P4C48
. ii ■ -.
74C74
:: ■-
74C86
74C89
■.!,.,!■
mm
ii.'ifj
74C107
74HC147
74HC151
74HC153
74HC154
74HCI57
74HCI58
74HC160
74HC161
74HC162
74HCI63
74HC164
74HC165
74MC166
74HC173
74HC174
74HCI7S
74HC190
74HC19I
74HC192
74HC193
74HC194
74HC195
74HC221
74HC237
74HC240
74HC241
74HC242
74HC243
74HC244
74MC251
74MC253
■4HC25?
74MC2S9
74MC266
74HC273
74HC280
r4MC299
;-, A
^4MC367
J4HC373
I4JC374
74HC390
It
74HC533 9 1*
74MC534 II 1*
74HC595 II 1 <*.
74HC688 II 1*
74HC4024 14 1 l'
74HC4040 II t V
74MC4049 II 1*1
74HC4050 IB 7'
74MC4060 IB 1 II
74HC4075 14 4!
74HC4078 14 4'
74HC4511 IB 19:
74HC4514 24 29 1
74HC4538 IB 1 9!
74HC4543 II ? 9:
74HOJ04 is unOuttered
' :■
EHaair
74C151
7C154
74C157
7C160
74C161
74C162
74C163
74C164
74C165
74C17-!
74CI74
74C175
74C192
/'■CI'M
74CI95
74C221
74C240
74C244
74C373
74H74
74C901
74C902
■.;..-.,::
74C906
74C907
74C911
74C9U
74C915
74C917
74C920
■l-.i."
74C922
74C923
'li.' i,".
74C926
74C930
80C95
-.I!-.,/
DS002bUt
IL064CN
IL071CP
T1072CP
1L074CN
R081CP
TL062CP
TL084CN
LM109K
LM301CN
LM3B2H
ms j-i
LM305H
LM307CN
kBOO
LM309K
LM311CN
LM312M
LM3in
LM317K
LM319CN
LM319N
LM320K5
LM320K-12
LM320K15
LM32W24
LM320T-5
LM3201-12
LM320H5
LM320T-24
LM322N
LM323K
LM324N
LM3290Z
LM331M
'.' 4.
LM335Z
LM3362
LM337MP
LM337T
LM338K
LM339N
IJ4340K5
iMl4l«',
lMUuk :',
VI K24
LM340T5
L.MJ4HT 1.
iMIJiil "-
LM340T24
LF347N
L.M348N
LM350K
LF351N I
LF353N I
LF355N I
LF356N I
LM358N B
LM359N 14
LM370M 14
LM373N 14
LM377N 14
LM380CN B
.M380N 14
LM38IN 14
LM382N 14
LM384N 14
LM306H-3 B
LM387N B
LM309N IB
imu )6
LM392N B
LM393N B
LF39BN I
LM399M
LF412CN I
TL494CN II
TL496CP I
".■:-.■■-.'. 14
NE531V I
CSOW D540H
NE544N 14
NE550A 14
NE555V I
KR-L555 I
LMS56M 14
NE558N IS
KE564N IB
LM565N 14
LM566CN 8
LM567V B
NE570N IB
•E571N IB
1E5S2N 14
LM703CN B
LM710N 14
LM71IN 14
LM723N 14
LM733N 14
LM739N 14
LM741CN B
IM747N 14
LM748N
UA760MC
LM1456V
LM1458CN
LM14S8N
LM1489N 14
LM14E
It
LM1605CX
LM1871N IB
LM1872N II
LM1877N-9 II
LM1889N II
LM1S96N 14
LM2002T
ULN2003A II
XR2206 II
XR2207 14
XR2208 II
XR2211 14
LM2877P
_'.' ■-■
LM290IN 14
LM2902N 14
LM2907H 14
LM29I7M I
LM2935T
LM3900N 14
LM3905CN I
LM39Q9N I
LM39HN I
LM3914N II
LM3915N II
LM39I6N II
RC4136N 14
FC4151M3 |
RC4193NFJ I
LM4250CN I
1C5532 I
NE5534 I
7BL05A
mm
79L05A
79M05AH
aS03H 14
LM130B0N B
LM13600N IB
75477 I
76002 14
76477 II
30003 1982 Nat. Linear Data Book i
$14.95
Inquiry I9I
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 237
lit il
111
m
JT
IF YOU'RE TIRED OF PAY-
ING OUTRAGEOUS LONG DIS-
TANCE CHARGES EVERY TIME
YOUR COMPUTER TALKS ON THE
PHONE, GTE TELENET OFFERS
AN ALTERNATIVE • IT'S
CALLED PC PURSUITS"
NOW FOR ONLY $55 A MONTH
(PLUS A ONE-TIME INSTAL-
LATION FEE OF $55) YOU'LL
BE ABLE TO REACH OTHER PC
USERS. FREE LOCAL DATA-
BASES AND BULLETIN BOARDS
IN ATLANTA, BOSTON, CHI-
CAGO, DALLAS, DENVER, DE-
TROIT, HOUSTON, LOS
ANGELES, NEU YORK (AREA
CODE 515), PHILADELPHIA.
SAN FRANCISCO AND WASH-
INGTON B.C. AND TAKE AD-
VANTAGE OF LOCAL SOFTWARE
DOWNLOADING CAPABILI-
TIES, AS WELL.
YOU CAN USE THE PC PUR-
SUIT SERVICE BETWEEN bPM
AND 7AM WEEKDAYS- AND ALL
DAY ON WEEKENDS. ALL YOU
NEED IS AN AUTO-ANSWER
MODEM AND COMMUNICATIONS
SOFTWARE.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
AND TO REGISTER, CALL A GTE
TELENET REPRESENTATIVE
AT 800-3bfl-M515 BETWEEN
AAM AND SPM EASTERN TIME-
OR USE YOUR MODEM TO CALL
600-635-3001 FOR OUR ON-
LINE USER ' S GUIDE 5 M HOURS
ABAY.
TRY PC PURSUIT, FROM GTE
TELENET- WORLD LEADER IN
PUBLIC NETWORK SERVICES,
INTERNATIONAL NETWORK
SERVICES, PRIVATE DATA
NETWORKS AND INNOVATIVE
NETWORK APPLICATIONS.
FINALLY YOU CAN GET YOUR
HANDS ON THE INFORMATION
YOU NEED. WITHOUT PAYING
AN ARM AND ALEG-
fHTB Telenet
NOU YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY THIS MUCH
TO ACCESS INFORMATION UITH YOUR HOME COMPUTER
238 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 157
COMPUTER CONFERENCING
COMMON
GROUND
by Chris Hancock
The user-friendliness of this microcomputer-based
conferencing system derives from its easy-to-visualize functions
IN THE COURSE of putting together
a computer-based conference for
science teachers, my colleagues and
I wound up writing a complete con-
ferencing system that runs on a micro-
computer. It's called Common
Ground, and we think it's the best in
its class. In this article I'll talk about
the program and some of the think-
ing that went into its design, and I'll
present some of the program's inter-
nal structures. I'll also discuss some
issues to consider in running your
own conference using Common
Ground.
The Educational Technology Center
is an organization funded by the Na-
tional Institute of Education and
based at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education. Its mission is to
study how computers and other new
technologies might help improve the
teaching of math, science, and com-
puting. One problem we've been look-
ing at is the isolation of science
teachers: Many science teachers,
especially in rural areas, have very
limited opportunities to share ideas
with colleagues or to find out what's
new and interesting in their scientific
fields. Computer conferencing seems
to be one promising way to address
the problem. We've been putting
together an experimental computer-
based conference for science
teachers in order to see the ways it
might help.
We needed our conferencing soft-
ware to satisfy several requirements.
First, it had to be easy to understand
and use: this was our single most im-
portant criterion. At the same time, it
needed to be a real conferencing sys-
tem with enrolled participants, full
capabilities for private messages, flex-
ible organization of public discus-
sions, and effective ways of searching
through messages to find what you're
looking for. Finally, we wanted a sys-
tem that would run on a microcom-
puter.
School districts, like many other
organizations, have modest budgets,
and for most of them a large com-
puter is out of reach. Of course, there
are limitations to using a microcom-
puter. For the time being, at least,
most micros can support only one
user at a time. This imposes a pretty
hard limit on the total number of par-
ticipants, but the limit is not as low as
one might think, provided people's
schedules are varied enough. We have
seen a conference with as many as
100 regular participants run comfort-
ably on a micro. Given that one of our
goals is to develop a strong con-
ference community, more than 100
people would probably be undesir-
able anyway. The one-user-at-a-time
limit also means that occasionally you
do get a busy signal when you call,
and you have to try again later. This
wouldn't do for businesses where
messages need to get through quick-
ly and without fail, but for our applica-
tion that isn't so crucial.
An Easy System to Use
We couldn't find the system we
wanted, so I wrote it. We feel that its
simplicity and ease of use are a
design triumph. The single most im-
portant reason for this is the spatial
metaphor around which the system is
structured. We picture the Common
Ground system as a building with
rooms in it. Every enrolled participant
has a private office that no one else
can get into. Private mail sent to a par-
(continued)
Chris Hancock is a project associate at Har-
vard's Educational Technology Center (Gut-
man 337. Harvard Graduate School of
Education, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge. MA
02138).
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 239
COMMON GROUND
ticipant is delivered to that person's
office. The building also has other
rooms, called forums, that anyone can
visit. Each forum is devoted to a par-
ticular discussion topic.
The power of the spatial metaphor
is that it makes it easy to understand
the state of the program ("where" you
are in it) at any moment. Most interac-
tive programs can change their states
in a couple of ways: The data that is
active or loaded may change (for ex-
ample, you might load a new text file
into a word-processor buffer] or the
current mode may change (for exam-
ple, in a database program you might
go from record-definition mode to
data-entry mode]. In the Common
Ground system, the idea of moving
from room to room stands for a
change of active data. When you are
in your office, you have access to your
personal mail; if you move to a public
forum, you have access to the public
mail there. As for modes, I have con-
sciously worked to keep the number
to a minimum. In fact, for the ordinary
user there are just three modes. The
main mode has just 10 commands.
Then there's message-entry mode,
where you type in your messages. The
third mode is the text editor, which
can be avoided by novices. (There are
also special modes for the operator
and other privileged users.) The main-
mode commands are as follows:
scan: lists the messages in the current
room.
read: reads messages in the current
room. The scan and read commands
both accept qualifiers that select mes-
sages in the room, based on date,
author, topic, and whether you've
read them before.
send: sends a message to any room
or combination of rooms. The send
command features a line editor for
those who want to edit their mes-
sages before sending them.
scout: lists all forums on the system
and the number of new (for you) mes-
sages in each one.
visit: lets you move from room to
room.
home: takes you back to your own
office.
whois: provides information about a
participant or a forum.
set: lets you change your password as
well as specify the width and height
of your screen.
help: provides full on-line documen-
tation.
bye: ends the session.
The short sample session shown in
figure I gives the flavor of the system.
As you can see, private and public
mail is read and sent in pretty much
the same way. using the read. scan,
and send commands. Their effect
simply depends on what room you're
in and what room(s) you send mes-
sages to. This is a good example of
the design principle known as or-
thogonality: One set of features
operates independently from another
set, with every possible combination
having a meaning.
Orthogonality is prized by software
people because it generally lets you
express a lot in terms of just a few
basic concepts. Sometimes, though,
an orthogonal structure forces you to
abandon your commonsense under-
standing of the application in favor of
a more abstract one. This trade-off
came up in the issue of groups and
forums. Besides participants and
forums, there is one other kind of en-
tity to which you can address a mes-
sage: a group. Groups do not corre-
spond to rooms in the system. In-
stead, each group has a membership
list, and any message sent to that
group is distributed to the offices of
all members of the group. Member-
ship in groups is controlled; you have
to ask to be enrolled in them. Groups
are intended for topics that are con-
fidential or urgent.
So groups and forums differ in two
ways: Groups have restricted access,
while forums have open access; and
group messages are delivered to their
members, while forum messages go
to a room of their own. Thinking or-
thogonally, it's possible to imagine
two other kinds of entities: forums
with limited access, so that not every-
one can visit them; and groups with
free access, which participants can
enroll in at will (perhaps using com-
mands like subscribe and cancel, to
invoke the home-delivery feature).
This time, we decided the
orthogonality wasn't worth it. For one
thing, it makes the solution more
complicated than the problem. For
almost any conceivable purpose, one
of the existing options (forum or
group) will do just fine. Moreover, a
lot of attention devoted to access and
privacy schemes would be out of
place in a system intended to pro-
mote a feeling of community. The
other important consideration was
simplicity. Forums and groups are
easy to understand: The words
"forum" and "group" resonate well
with the way they actually work on the
system. Abstracting out the two
dimensions they differ on would lose
us that valuable intuitive base, unless
we devoted a lot of effort and em-
phasis to a more extended metaphor
(perhaps involving keys or secret pass-
words to forum rooms, which begins
to seem more like an adventure
game!).
Design issues
The most important work in produc-
ing a piece of software like Common
Ground is not implementing it but
specifying it— designing the way it will
appear to users. Furthermore, in order
to decide how the program should
behave, you need, in effect, to design
all the activities that will take place
around the program. It is vital to
recognize that the software system
functions as a part of a larger system
of human and technical interactions.
As the principle of top-down design
implies, the first task is to design that
larger system and then to proceed
down to the computer program itself.
Design decisions at the top level will
have implications for the design of the
actual program.
In principle, this is true for any pro-
gram. It is crucial in the case of a com-
puter conferencing program for two
reasons. First, computer conferencing
consists of more than just the running
of a computer program. Second,
because computer conferencing is in
its infancy, there are plenty of open
questions concerning how a con-
240 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
COMPUTER CONFERENCING
LOCAL POWER
IN A REMOTE LINK
by Chuck McManis
Conferencing systems can let micros handle
much of the processing load
BY FAR THE MOST common remote
systems are those that handle elec-
tronic conferencing. Despite their
diversity, most of these systems share
one unpleasant characteristic: They
are too slow. However, there is a solu-
tion. The designers of conferencing
systems can incorporate facilities into
conferencing software for allowing
microcomputers to handle much of
the conferencing load.
This article describes a two-part
software solution to the traditional I/O
(input/output) bottleneck when you
connect to a remote computer sys-
tem. The first is a method of encod-
ing the information you transmit to
decrease the average number of bits
per character. The second transfers
from the conferencing system to your
computer the task of providing the
user interface.
As a user of the conferencing sys-
tem, you will experience a dramatic
increase in speed. With a faster con-
nection, you can get more done in the
same amount of time or reduce the
amount of connect time. And,
because you can personalize the com-
mands, you will also find it easier to
use the system.
System administrators will also ex-
perience a dramatic increase in
speed. As the serial lines become in-
telligent I/O channels, they demand
less of the CPU (central processing
unit). The system could therefore sup-
port more serial lines, permitting
more subscribers to have access to
the system, or you might be able to
use a less powerful, less expensive
computer.
The relatively slow speed of remote
systems owes mainly to two factors.
The first is the rate at which the data
can transfer to your system over a
voice-grade phone line. The second
concerns the sheer size of the data.
Even in modest microcomputer bul-
letin-board systems (BBSs), the data
can total several megabytes a month.
Larger systems handle several mega-
bytes a day. Handling all of this data
does not require sophisticated numer-
ical abilities, but it can quickly over-
whelm the I/O bandwidth of any sys-
tem.
There are two ways to mitigate the
I/O bottleneck. One is to improve the
communications hardware between
the conferencing system and the
remote site. Manufacturers are mak-
ing remarkable improvements in this
area. There are now full-duplex.
2400-bps (bits per second), asyn-
chronous modems at prices that were
attractive for 1200-bps modems five
years ago. The other method is to
maximize use of the existing band-
width by adding an I/O processor at
the remote site. This might seem more
expensive than upgrading your com-
munications hardware until you con-
sider that, already at the remote site,
there is probably an I/O processor,
your computer, that is acting like a
very expensive piece of wire between
your terminal and the modem.
You can use your computer as an
I/O processor in one of two ways. First,
you could implement some form of
data compression on the data stream
between your computer and the host
system. A somewhat more involved
solution is to have your computer pro-
vide some of the facilities that the
conferencing system traditionally
provides.
(continued)
Chuck McManis is an engineer at Mel. He
has been programming professionally for 10
years and spends his spare time writing system
software for a Cromemco S-100 system run-
ning CP/M with ZCPR3. He can be reached
at 1141 Vasquez Ave., Sunnyvale. CA
94086.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 251
LOCAL POWER
Data-compression techniques max-
imize the amount of meaningful infor-
mation in a given number of bits by
applying some statistical analysis on
the original data. Obviously the fre-
quency of occurrence of various
ASCII (American Standard Code for
Information Interchange) codes in
text-only data streams will be greater
than others; several letters appear
often and most special symbols ap-
pear infrequently. One way to take ad-
vantage of this information is to apply
a data-compression algorithm that
reduces the number of bits used for
frequently used characters. Huffman
encoding, for example, can provide
compressions on the order of 2 5 per-
cent when used with a fixed encod-
ing/decoding tree for textual data.
With 2 5 percent compression a
modem that transmits at 1200 bps will
have an effective data-transfer rate of
1500 bps.
Data compression is effective for
reducing the number of bits that you
transmit to the host system, but you
can program your computer to further
reduce the amount of data you need
to send. Careful analysis of the facili-
ties that conferencing systems provide
indicates that you can implement
many of these facilities equally well
with your computer.
What Is the Conferencing
System Doing?
A conferencing system has two parts,
the user interface and low-level code
to open data files and display them
on a terminal. The low-level code is
machine-dependent, but the user in-
terface is entirely the creation of the
programmer who designed it. Gen-
erally, there are three principal capa-
bilities: editing, command interpreta-
tion, and user-profile maintenance.
A computer system that accepts
spontaneous user input must have
built-in editing facilities. The degree of
editing complexity can range from a
single cancel command that erases
previous input and allows you to start
again, to a full set of line- and charac-
ter-manipulation commands. During
command entry, you are usually
limited to using the backspace or
delete key to erase the previous
character. Occasionally, you also have
the option to delete the entire line.
This type of editing is simple to im-
plement in the terminal driver of the
conferencing system. However, it re-
quires some CPU intervention to
determine if a character is in the in-
put buffer when the delete key is
pressed, to erase the character from
your screen, or to indicate in some
other way that the character has been
discarded from the input stream.
Complex editing places more de-
mand on the CPU. For example, when
editing messages (limited-distribution
files that are the basic unit of an
electronic mail system), you must fre-
quently change characters or words
on a line other than the one on which
you are currently working. Typically,
the conferencing system will have
available a section of code, either an
integral part of the system or a
separate program, for editing large
amounts of input. The code may use
some features of your terminal or
none at all. Typically you will use this
editor often, but it will probably dif-
fer from the other editors you regu-
larly use.
Both line editors and screen editors
help you to manipulate text before
you send it to the world or save it in
a file. Line editors were initially
developed to be used over low-speed
data lines, such as a modem connec-
tion, and with hard-copy terminals,
such as the Teletype model 33. Line
editors minimize the amount of infor-
mation that you must transmit
through the modem, but at the ex-
pense of both user-friendliness and
cohesiveness of the displayed output.
They perform equally well on dumb
or smart terminals and are therefore
somewhat "universal" in nature.
Screen editors, on the other hand,
were developed for use on high-
speed data lines and are much more
user-friendly. They can keep the
message display up to date with con-
tinuous screen updates. However,
continual updates reduce the effective
data rate of your modem since char-
acter insertions and deletions can
cause the updated contents of the
message buffer to rewrite large por-
tions of the screen. A screen editor
also needs to know more about your
terminal functions than does a line
editor. For example, it needs to know
how your terminal addresses the cur-
sor and how it clears a line. Naturally,
managers cannot possibly know all of
the various terminals that will access
the system, nor can they write soft-
ware to support all possible terminals
and still leave room in memory for
other things. As a result, screen
editors are much less common on
conferencing systems. Some editors,
such as Digital Equipment Corpora-
tion's EDT, attempt to fill the needs of
all users by changing from a line
editor to a screen editor on
command.
However, the editing functions of
the conferencing system are some of
the easiest to give to your computer.
Your Computer Can Help
If the conferencing program could
command your computer to get an
edited line of text from your key-
board, you would free up the time
and memory that the conferencing
system would normally use to provide
the editing functions. Admittedly, this
is a rather small portion of the over-
head associated with command input.
However, when applied to several
users, the time savings was significant
enough for IBM to provide this capa-
bility in its 3270 series terminals.
The next logical step would be a
command from the conferencing sys-
tem asking your computer to return
an entire block of already-edited text.
As opposed to the rather crude
"block mode of some terminals, your
computer could invoke your favorite
editor for entering a message or arti-
cle and then transmit the edited text
to the conferencing system only after
you were satisfied with its ap-
pearance.
There are several benefits to local
editing. First, the response time will
be independent of both your modem
speed and the number of users ac-
cessing the conferencing system. Sec-
ond, it eliminates the performance
[continued]
252 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Want to hear
a demonstration of
Hewlett-Packard's
ITS BETTER
TO HAVE MORE POWER
THAN YOU NEED
THAN NOT ENOUGH.
There's a funny thing about
database users. A lot of
people buy a program that
has all the power they need
to get started. And not a whole lot more.
Well, that makes perfect sense.
If you plan to stay in the same place
all your life. But as most users get the
feel of things, they want to push them-
selves farther and farther. That's when
they wish they'd bought a program
that had some extra muscle. And if you
look at this chart, you'll see that's the
whole idea behind R:base™ 5000.
DBMS POWER
R:base 5000 vs. dBASE III
R:base 5000
dBASE III
Comprehensive
procedural language
Yes
Yes
Built-in
application compiler
Yes
No
development tools that the most
intense programmers can't outgrow.
To give you a better idea what
this extra power can do, just take a
look at one feature. With R:base 5000,
you get a relational operator called
SUBTRACT which dBASE III doesn't
offer. By using this command, you could
take all the names in one file (such as
your customer list) and subtract them
from any other file (like the Fortune
500). The result? An instant list of new
business opportunities. And this is only
one way to use one of the extra capa-
bilities on this chart,- there are literally
hundreds more.
SEE FOR YOURSELF:
1-800-547-4000.
If you believe in common sense
as much as we do, you won't take our
\A/nrn Tor tr. xmi/ll crt^t- \r/-»xit- U-i**Ae> ~« -*
ITS BETTER
TO HAVE MORE POWER
THAN YOU NEED
THAN NOT ENOUGH.
There's a funny thing about
database users. A lot of
people buy a program that
has all the power they need
to get started. And not a whole lot more.
Well, that makes perfect sense.
If you plan to stay in the same place
all your life. But as most users get the
feel of things, they want to push them-
selves farther and farther. That's when
they wish they'd bought a program
that had some extra muscle. And if you
look at this chart, you'll see that's the
whole idea behind R:base™ 5000.
DBMS POWER
R:base 5000 vs. dBASE III
R:base 5000
dBASE III
Comprehensive
procedural language
Yes
Yes
Built-in
application compiler
Yes
No
Choice of row or
column report format
Yes
No
Accessible tables
per report
40
10
Number of
relational operators
6
2
Password security
Yes
No
User-definable data
entry rules
Yes
No
Automatic key index
maintenance
Yes
No
Data dictionary
Yes
No
THE KIND OF POWER
THAT'S EASY TO HANDLE.
We made R:base 5000 so easy to
use that a complete novice can develop
applications with it right off the bat.
But that's just the beginning; we've
built in a whole arsenal of high-powered
development tools that the most
intense programmers can't outgrow.
To give you a better idea what
this extra power can do, just take a
look at one feature. With R:base 5000,
you get a relational operator called
SUBTRACT which dBASE III doesn't
offer. By using this command, you could
take all the names in one file (such as
your customer list) and subtract them
from any other file (like the Fortune
500). The result? An instant list of new
business opportunities. And this is only
one way to use one of the extra capa-
bilities on this chart; there are literally
hundreds more.
SEE FOR YOURSELF:
1-800-547-4000.
If you believe in common sense
as much as we do, you won't take our
word for it; you'll get your hands on a
copy and see for yourself. And that's
just what we'd like you to do. For only
$9.95 (plus shipping) we'll send you a
mini-version of the product that lets
you build real applications.
Just call 1-800-547-4000 and ask
for Dept. 836 . From Oregon, or out-
side the U.S., call 1-503-684-3000,
Dept. 836 . We'll send your copy right
out. If you'd like to see R:base 5000
today, head straight for a leading store
or computer dealer.
And see
how far you
can go when
your DBMS
has all its oars
in the water.
R:BASE 5000
FROM MICRORIM
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO COMMON SENSE.
EE 111 is a trademark of AshtonTate.
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ra
HEWLETT
PACKARD
Inquiry 168
V
HEWLETT
PACKAPD
*U.S. list price. PG02511
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 257
THE CMO ADVANTAGE
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ALL EQUIPMENT CARRIES MANUFACTURER'S WARRANTY RETURNS REQUIRE PRIOR APPROVAL AND ARE SUBJECT TO A RESTOCKING FEE.
ALL SALES ARE FINAL. WE CANNOT GUARANTEE EQUIPMENT COMPATIBILITY. Inquiry 293
COMPUTER CONFERENCING
CONVERSATIONS
by Douglas E. Comer and Larry L. Peterson
An alternative to memos and conferences
This article is based on excerpts from a paper entitled "Conversations:
An Alternative to Memos and Conferences'.' which was presented at
the Workshop on Computer Conferencing and Electronic Messaging,
University of Guelph, Canada, January 22-23, 1985.
A CONVERSATION-BASED SYSTEM groups messages
into conversations, with messages within a conversation
ordered according to the context in which they are writ-
ten. Message context defines a relation between messages
that makes it easy to implement conversations in a
distributed environment.
Data Structure
The underlying structures that support both the memo-
based system DRAGON MAIL and teleconferencing sys-
tems are the mailbox and the conference, respectively.
Simple interfaces, such as the UNIX mail system, place
saved messages in a named file. Other interfaces, such
as MH, MS, and Laurel, provide more advanced
mechanisms for archiving messages, such as "folders" into
which messages are filed. Commands allow the user to
browse through the hierarchy of saved messages and
select particular messages based on a specified attribute-
value pair. User interfaces like Edmas and AUGMENT use
the technique of "linking" related messages, providing yet
another mechanism for allowing the user to traverse
through a list of messages and replies to messages.
Despite their differences, all conventional user interfaces
are founded on a memo-based model that resembles the
office practice of memo communication. A new model for
exchanging information combines the memo-based model
and the teleconferencing model. This approach replaces
the first-in/first-out ordering of memos with a mechanism
that groups messages into conversations and orders the
messages within a conversation according to the context
in which they were created. This model places a high-level
structure on messages, where the fundamental object of
communication is the conversation rather than the memo.
Instead of reading, writing, and filing individual memos,
users participate in a set of conversations.
The Underlying Model
A conversation consists of a group of messages, denoted
M = {m, | i>0}, shared by a set of participants, denoted
P = {Pi | i>0}. Also associated with a conversation is
a topic defined by the user who starts the conversation.
A topic is a short phrase that describes the conversation's
general area of discussion.
Participants view the messages associated with a con-
versation as well as add new messages. In this system, par-
ticipants submit messages to a specific conversation rather
than mail them to a set of recipients. A conversation
begins when a user defines the set of participants P and
submits an initial message m . New members are added
(continued)
Douglas E. Comer, who has a Ph.D. in computer science from Penn-
sylvania State University, has worked as a professor and researcher
at Purdue University and Bell Laboratories. He can be contacted at
the Department of Computer Science. Purdue University, West
Lafayette. IN 47907.
Larry L. Peterson received his Ph.D. in computer science from Pur-
due University, where his thesis investigated issues in electronic mail
systems. He can be contacted at the Department of Computer Science,
University of Arizona, Tucson. AZ 85721.
DECEMBER
35 • B Y T E 263
CONVERSATIONS
to a conversation by having the list expanded to include
them. Similarly, old members may be removed. Being add-
ed to a conversation means having access to the entire
history of the conversation (i.e., all of set M). Removal im-
plies not being able to read any further messages sub-
mitted to the conversation. The system also allows users
to manipulate entire conversations; a user can delete an
unwanted conversation, as well as merge two related con-
versations and split a diverging conversation.
The conversation-based system partitions messages in
a conversation into visible and hidden subsets. The system
automatically displays visible messages to participants
when a conversation is viewed. Hidden messages are
maintained in the history of the conversation and can be
viewed by users via special commands. Participants may
Figure 1 : A context graph for a conversation in which message
a was the initial message of the conversation. Messages b and c
were submitted after their respective authors had read message a,
but independently of each other. Message d was submitted after
its author had viewed messages a and c but before he had viewed
message b.
hide messages determined to be irrelevant to the conver-
sation and supersede a group of messages with a single sum-
marizing message.
Message Structure
An individual message in a conversation consists of a
header, a body, and a set of attachments. The header consists
of the sender of the message, the creation or date of the
message, and the subject of the message. The header may
also contain a set of parameters, including the urgency and
lifetime of the message.
The body of the message contains the lines of text
meant to be viewed by the participants. Along with the
text, a user may send a set of attachments with the mes-
sage. Attachments might be binary programs, source pro-
grams, or data files that are not necessarily meant to be
viewed by participants. Instead, participants remove at-
tachments from the message and place them in files for
further computation.
Participant Hierarchy
Participants in a conversation are categorized according
to their privileges within the system. Here are the classes
of participants and their respective privileges:
Reader: A participant who is only allowed to read
messages in a conversation.
Contributor: A participant who reads and also has the
right to add messages to a conversation.
Administrator: A person who can remove or add par-
ticipants as well as move irrelevant messages into the set
of hidden messages.
Owner: The person who starts a conversation. In addi-
tion to having administrative authority the owner has the
right to extend or restrict the privileges of other
participants.
Message Context
The underlying structure of a conversation maintains the
relationship among the messages that make up the con-
versation. Informally, when participants compose a
message, they do so in the context of the messages they
have already seen. Specifically, message context is a relation
R that holds between messages i and / such that m t R m s
if and only if m, had been read by the author of m } before
composing m.j.
The set of message-context relations for the messages
in a conversation is represented by a directed acyclic graph
called a context graph, denoted C = (M. £). The vertices of
G correspond to the messages in the conversation, while
the edges of the graph represent the message-context
relation. An edge leading from node i to node /' implies
rrii R m s and reads "m l precedes m/.' Figure 1 is an exam-
ple of a context graph.
Associated with each participant p, is a subset of M.
denoted M,, corresponding to those messages in M
(continued)
264 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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IBM 3161 & 3163 Series Save
Oume OVT Green 101 $299
QVT Amber 101 $314
Wyse 30 $299
50 $419
75 $559
Wyse 85 ..... $579
Wyse 350 $859
Zenith Z-22 $455
Z-29 $599
Z-49 Save
DISK DRIVES
Alpha Omega Turbo 10 $529
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Everex
10 Megabyte $549
20 Megabyte $689
60 Megabyte $879
Haba Hobodisk for Macintosh $279
Iomega Bernoulli Box for IBM
10 Megabyte Save
20 Megabyte Save
20 Megabyte Plus Save
5 Megabyte for Macintosh Save
MODEMS
AT4T
4000Externol $319
Anchor Automation
Anchor Express . $235
Mork XII $229
Hayes Smortmodem 300 Baud $129
Smartmodem 1200 Baud , $369
Smortmodem I200B(IBM) $319
Smartmodem 2400 Baud $599
Mkromodem HE (Apple) $1 34
Novation Smart Cat Plus $279
Prometheus All Models Save
US Robotics Courier 2400 $389
Password 1200 $195
KEYBOARDS
Keyframes 5151 $159
5151 Jr. $179
DISKETTES
3M SVi DS/DD(Qty K)0)
Maxell MD-2 Plastic Box (Qry 100)
MD-20 Plastic Box (Qly 100) .
Sony MD/2 (Qty 100)
PLOTTERS
Enter Sweet-P600
Epson Hi-80 Sc
SOFTWARE
WORD PROCESSORS
Leading Edge Word Processor
Leading Edge W/P with Spell & Mail
Microsoft Word 2.0
ssa
$137
$223
$206
Wordstar Pro Pack
$239
Word Perfect (Ver.4.0).
Wordstar 2000
Wordstar 2000 Plus . .
$199
$239
$285
GRAPHICS
PC Paintbrush
Energraphics
PC Draw
PC Draw Light Pen
$206
$62
$28
190
555
$165
$214
$149
$203
$104
$123
$107
$78
$30
$135
LANGUAGES
C Compiler (Microsoft)
Fortran Compiler (Microsoft) ... . ,
Macro Assembler .
$235
$209
$89
$178
$35
$«•
$85
$59
$28
UTILITIES
1 DIR
$48
$19
Norton Utilities 3.0
$49
Sidekick (Unprotected)
$43
Sidekick— Superkey [Bundle)
1
TRAINING
$43
S65
$30
$29
MONEY MANAGEMENT
Dollars & Sense w/Forcast
Tobias Managing Your Money
$95
$95
Gem Collection $115
Gem Desktop $29
Gem Draw $ave
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Harvard Total Project Manager
Microsoft Project
Super Project
Timeline 2.0
$239
$149
$182
$249
$17
$94
$78
$94
COMMUNICATIONS
CompuServe Starter Kit
Crosstalk XVI
PFS Access
Remote
INTEGRATIVE SOFTWARE
Enable 1.1 $299
Framework Save
Smart Software System $459
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Lotus 1-2-3 Save
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| Supercalc 3 (Ver.2) . . . SAVE |
DATA BASE MANAGEMENT
Cornerstone . . . $255
dBase II Save
dBase III Save
Nutshell Save
PFS:File S78
PFSiReport $70
Qukkcode $139
QukkReport $139
Extended Report Writer . $80
Think Tank $93
Clipper $355
Knowledge™ an II Save
Knowledgeman Upgrade Kit Save
Powerbase
(NewVer.Reb.320K) $205
|R:Base500Q.$335/ ,
58 ^£§1
Inquiry 326 for MS-DOS Products. Inquiry 327 for all others.
Prices reflect 3% to 5% cash discount. Product shipped in factory cartons with manufacturer's warranty. Please add $ 10.00 per order
for UPS shipping. Prices & availability subject to change without notice. Send cashier's check or money order... all other checks will delay
shipping two weeks.
^
*w
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150 NS ADD S10
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CONVERSATIONS
Conversations move
into the background after
n idle days, whether
a participant has viewed
all the messages there or not
already viewed by p f . We informally think of the context
graph as having each node marked according to whether
or not each participant has read it. Thus, when participant
Pi views a message, the message is added to ft?,, and when
Pi submits a message, it is connected to the context graph
by edges leading from all the vertices in M,.
The messages in the graph are arranged topologically.
Thus, if message m,- was composed by a participant after
reading message m„ then m, is displayed to those view-
ing the conversation before m,.
Anytime a user participates in_a set of conversations,
denoted K = {fe,|i>0}, he or she defines subsets of K
by supplying a subset name and specifying the conversa-
tions in K contained in the subset. (We represent the
subset named S as K s .) Defining subsets of conversations
allows the user to treat a group of conversations
collectively.
In addition to user-defined subsets of K, conversation-
based mail maintains a collection of system-defined
subsets. For example, the system partitions K into foreground
and background subsets, denoted K F and K B . respectively.
Conversation k t E K F if and only if a participant has acted
on it in the last n days.
The system also partitions K into the subset of conver-
sations that contain messages not yet seen by the user,
denoted K N . and the subset of conversations in which the
user is up to date, denoted K c . Finally. K v denotes the set
of conversations containing unread urgent messages. K
£ K N , but K £ K F because conversations move into the
background after n idle days, whether a participant has
viewed all the messages it contains or not.
Distributed System Implementation
We abstractly view a conversation as having a single con-
text graph. But because users expect a fast response time
when viewing messages, a single graph is not practical if
the participants in a conversation are distributed over two
or more computer systems with inherent communication
delays between them.
Therefore, each participant p t is seen as having a resi-
dent copy of a subgraph of G. denoted G,-, that is quickly
accessible for viewing. When participant p t views the mes-
sages in a conversation, he or she sees only the messages
[continued)
266 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry II I
"A true data
management product is
inherently multi-user."
Edward M. Esber, Jr.
President AshtonTate Software, "InfoWorld" July 22, 1985
Thank you Mr. Esber. We at DataAccess Corp.
couldn't agree more! That's why DataFlex was
designed and implemented with true multi-
user capabilities right from the start, way back
in 1981.
And we mean RIGHT from the start.
Take for example DataFlex's multi-user data
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Another of DataFlex's multi-user facilities
is its sophisticated, yet easy to use, on-line
query program. Query allows even inexperi-
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reports simply by using a mouse or the cursor
control keys to "point & shoot" at the data
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DataFlex maintains on-line data indices,
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You even have the option of generating error-
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The TRUE Multi-User Applications Development Database
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Inquiry 102
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 267
TOTALCONTROL
with LMI FORTH"
For Programming Professionals:
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Support Services for registered users:
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Call or write for detailed product information
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urn
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Australia: Wave-onic Associates, 6107 Wilson, W.A.
CONVERSATIONS
DRAGONMAIL is configured
to run on three VAX/UNIX
4. 2 BSD computers connected
by a \0-megabit token ring:
the source code is written in C.
that are contained in G,, where M, ^ M is the set of
messages resident at p/s system, and M, = M,.
Furthermore, when p, submits a message, that message
is added to G, and the system propagates the update to
all the other participants' copies to effect the change to
G previously described.
Specifically, when p,- submits message m new to a conver-
sation, a new node is first attached to his or her graph
G, and then to each remote copy of G. Updating a graph
involves transporting information over computer networks.
Because of varying communication delays between com-
puters, however, it is possible for p ; to receive a message,
read it, and respond to it before p, receives the original
message.
Thus, we must ensure that all the nodes to which m„ ew
connects are also present in G> That is, the operation of
adding m„ ew to a given Gj is blocked until each node that
precedes m„« M , is present in Gj. Finally, because a path from
each message that precedes m„,», is sufficient (rather than
a direct edge), we require that the new message be at-
tached only to the leaf vertices of M t , thereby reducing
the overhead of adding new nodes to a context graph.
The Prototype
A prototype conversation-based mail system called
DRAGONMAIL is being used as part of the TILDE proj-
ect at Purdue University. DRAGONMAIL currently serves
over 100 users and a dozen groups in the Computer
Sciences Department and is configured to run on three
VAX/UNIX 4.2BSD computers connected by a 10-mega-
bit token ring. The DRAGONMAIL source code is written
in C and is approximately 6500 lines long.
DRAGONMAILs user population is distributed over
three hosts, with a particular host designated as each
user's home machine. Each host maintains a copy of all
conversations in which the residents of that host par-
ticipate. Also, a single copy of the context graph is
replicated on each host for each of its resident partici-
pants.
When a user invokes an operation that alters a conver-
sation, the local version of DRAGONMAIL distributes the
change to the home machine of each participant. At each
destination host DRAGONMAIL then makes appropriate
{continued)
268 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 202
The Sourceis Illuminattag.
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 269
CONVERSATIONS
A DRAGONMAIL Conversation
CONV
TOPIC
NEW/TOT
1
TILDE reports
0/15
*2
Do What I Mean
2/4
*3
Dragon Bugs
3/10
4
Ethernet on 8086s
0/18
Conversation 2: Do What I Mean
MSG Synopsis
1 Chris / 5-16 9:30 / CR
2 Steve / 5-17 8:44/ Control L
*3 Doug / 5-17 18:50 / More on CR
*4 Tim / 5-17 19:31 / I disagree
Figure A: Screen display after initiating a mail session. The
Topic column contains a brief synopsis of the conversations
shown. The lines in boldface are highlighted on the screen to
indicate that the conversation contains an unread message.
Conversations marked with an asterisk contain urgent
messages. The user selects a conversation by entering the
corresponding number in the command window.
Figure B: Screen display after selecting conversation 2. This
time the user selects message 1 via the command window.
Note that the ID of the conversation is displayed in the upper
window. Unread messages are in boldface. Previously read
messages appear in this display to give surrounding context to
new messages. Operations such as list, add. and delete
participants can be executed at this level.
Conversation 2: Do What 1 Mean
Msg 1: Chris / 5-16 9:30 / CR
Instead of returning to the conversation level, carriage return
should do what I mean (DWIM)— automatically display the next
unread message.
Cheers,
Chris
Figure C: Screen display of conversation 2. Note that at
this level conversation ID and message ID are displayed in
the two upper windows. Executing an S [submit] command at
this point puts the user in the edit mode. An H (help)
command may be executed at any point in the process and
will display the command syntax for that level.
changes to its copy of the conversation.
Information is distributed between copies of a conver-
sation through the existing mail-transport system. SEND-
MAIL. DRAGONMAIL was implemented on top of the
existing message-transport system because the compo-
nent hosts do not share a common transport-level pro-
tocol. The "sending" DRAGONMAIL encapsulates the
message and header lines inside a "standard message."
Specific header lines are added to the regular header, and
other data is placed within the message body.
When a message arrives at a remote copy of the con-
versation, the local DRAGONMAIL updates its copy of the
context graph associated with that conversation. If the
message cannot be added to the local copy of G because
the messages that precede it are not present, then the
message is placed in a queue. As additional messages ar-
rive. DRAGONMAIL checks the queue for messages that
can be added to G.
Because the message-transport system occasionally
loses messages, queued messages "timeout" after a
period of time, and the local copy of the conversation is
refreshed by requesting the conversation's history from
the home host. Figure A shows a typical screen display
when a mail session is initiated. Figure B shows the display
when a specific conversation ("Do What I Mean"! is
selected. Figure C is the display of the actual message
viewed in the conversation "Do What I Mean."
We have described a new high-level computer mail ser-
vice based on conversations rather than independent
[continued)
270 BYTE- DECEMBER
Inquiry 28I
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Inquiry 209
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CONVERSATIONS
memos. Conversations have the advantage of being more
consistent with the way humans communicate. Conversa-
tion-based mail also supports various message-exchange
paradigms such as memo communication, mailing lists,
and journals.
Conversations are as powerful as teleconferencing sys-
tems in their ability to group related messages while re-
maining as inexpensive to use (and start) as conventional
memo-based systems. Conversation-based mail also sup-
ports a uniform interface to all forms of mail-like services.
Most important, conversations provide a flexible commu-
nication paradigm that users can tailor to their needs. ■
Editor's note: Dr. Peterson is currently working on a second version
of DRAGONMAIL at the University of Arizona. The initial pro-
totype demonstrated the workability of conversations as a medium for
communication and pointed to several improvements in the initial model.
The second version of DRAGONMAIL will be a stand-alone mail
system that is fully integrated with the current computer mail environ-
ment. In other words. DRAGONMAIL will serve both as a
conversation-based message system and as an interface to conventional
memo-based mail.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"The AUGMENT Mail User's Guide." Journal Document <AUG-
MENT.103481 >. Tymshare Inc.. Office Automation Division,
November 1983.
Allman, E. "SENDMA!L-An Internetwork Mail Router." UNIX
Programmer's Manual, version 4.2. Berkeley Software Distribution,
vol. 2. August 1983.
Almes, G., A. Black. C. Bunje, and D. Wiebe. "Edmas: A Locally
Distributed Mail System." Technical Report 83-07-01, University
of Washington, July 1983.
Borden, B. S., R. S. Gaines, and N. Z. Shapiro. "The MH Message
Handling System." User's Manual R-2367-AF. Rand Corp.,
November 1979.
Brotz, D K. Laurel Manual. Technical Report CSL-81-6. Palo Alto,
CA: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, May 1981.
Comer, D E.. and L. L. Peterson. "Conversation-Based Mail."
TILDE Report CSD-TR-465. Purdue University, March 1984.
Comer. D. E. "Transparent Integrated Local and Distant
Environment (TILDE): Project Overview." TILDE Report CSD-
TR-466. Purdue University March 1984.
Crocker, D H. "Framework and Functions of the MS Personal
Message System." R-2134-ARPA. Rand Corp., December 1977.
Horton. M. "How to Read Network News." UNIX Programmer's
Manual, version 4.1. Berkeley Software Distribution, vol. 2, 1979.
loy. W., and Wasley D Msgs. UNIX Programmer's Manual, version
4,1. Berkeley Software Distribution, vol. 1, 1979.
Knuth, D. E. The Art of Computer Programming, vol. 3. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley 1973.
Lipinski, H. M., and R. H. Miller. "FORUM: A Computer-Assisted
Communications Medium." Proceedings of the 2nd International
Conference on Computer Communications. August 1974, pages
143-147.
Palme, I. COM/PortaCOM Conference System Design Coals and Principles.
Stockholm. Sweden: QZ, Stockholm University Computing
Center, March 1984.
Shoens. K. "Mail Reference Manual." UNIX Programmer's Manual.
version 4.1. Berkeley Software Distribution, vol. 2, 1979.
272 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 83
PC NETWORK IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE
In Less Than 2 Years You've Made Us The World's Largest
Mail-Order Supplier Of Personal Computer Products.
Here's Why We're The World's Best ...
s
"ome say that being the biggest and being
the best are qualities that often have little impact
on each other. We believe otherwise. In a mar-
ketplace as crowded as ours, PC Network has
excelled by making your needs and your budget
our prime considerations. To accomplish this, we
merge 2 powerful but underused concepts ...We
give you more . We charge you less. PC Network
is the Value Added" Mail Order Firm. We
think that's good business. And so do you, as
you've proven with an astounding 90%
repeat-buy rate!
How does your Network membership give you
the advantage? Read on.
#1 in Selection
We sell more computer products than any other
firm in the business. We have o\er40,000 square
feet of inventory valued at over $15. 000. 000.
The Network offers over 30,000 different prod-
ucts for virtually any personal computer on the
market.
#1 in Savings
Our huge volume has enabled us to lead the way
in providing the lowest prices on the largest selec-
tion in the industry. We offer our unique "Cost +
8% "formula on everything ... not just the
popular "grabber" products.
#1 in Speed
We ship almost all of our orders complete within
48 hours. Additionally we maintain a special
RUSH stock of many important products to fill
your emergency needs overnight!
#1 in Support
We are over 100 strong, all working to serve
you. Our sales people are consultants, not order
takers. Our technical support staff are factory-
trained and degreed engineers. Excellence and
a concern for your needs are stressed in every
department of the Network . . . and it pays off.
#1 in Satisfaction
You know, only too well, the risks of products not
turning out to be what they seemed in ads or show
demonstrations. To insure your satisfaction, we
offer a 10 day, money back, no-questions-
asked, guarantee on all hardware . . combined
with our unique Iry-Before-You-Buy" software
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#1 in Stability
This is a time of industry ups and downs. Imi-
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It seems as if a typical mad-order firm has the life
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tions and industry savvy to insure that we'll be
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#1 in Even More
But to truly excel, PC Network must do even more
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• You'll get the Printout , our quarterly news-
letter, giving you fantastic specials and an un-
biased analysis of new products and trends.
• You'll get our 600 page wholesale catalog, the
largest compilation of computer products any-
where . . . plus quarterly updates.
• You'll get the Network's On-line Bulletin
Board.. . a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week com-
puter service with access to product updates,
tech support, download free demo software,
public domain software and much, much more.
The Challenge of Being #1
Above all, you'U receive our pledge to keep con-
stant watch on all facets of this ever-changing
industry, seeking new ways to reward your
commitment to PC Network.
As for our commitment? With your satisfaction,
we'll stay the biggest and the best.
CALL TOLL-FREE 1 -800-621 -S-A-V-E
In Illinois Call (312) 280-0002
PC USEES
GET THE NETWORK ADVANTAGE!!!
BUY HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE AT WHOLESALE + 8%,
AND GET 14-30 DAY SOFTWARE RENTALS*. . .
Listed below are just a few of the over 30,000 products available at our EVERYDAY LOW PRICES!
The Network carries products for Apple, IBM, CP/M and most other popular computer families.
GAMES 4 EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE FOR YOUR APPLE // & MACINTOSH
(Please add Si shipping and handling lor each title ordered Irom below I
Whotesak
Wholesale-
Arrays rtv-.
S6S00'
Miles C .imputing U
s' 00*
Ailon -"■■■ •*■■
3100-
Paiat.r Mn .-■.'■
23 50*
BtuectHp .". ■
26 00'
Penguin , ,, 1 ■,-
28 97-
Broderbwnci
19 75'
Penguin
20 00"
Brooerbund
19.00*
Penguin ■ .
20 00*
Broderbund
2B 75'
Professional Software fnvtaFevei
19.00*
Broderbund Dd,v'i''ir.j.v
31 97'
Pryofity Software 1 OtqiMi " QufSI
21 00*
CBS '.' '■
53 50"
Scarborough Maslei fypc
26 50*
C8SW-. .**".•■, ■
20 97'
Scarborough m'i.t- ? V
26 00*
C8SCorB«8ndgi UaOk Easi
45 00*
Simon & Schuster ,
28 25*
Counterpo-nf '•• V -
26 97-
Sir Tech H
26 97*
Davidson Speed Reade* "
37 97'
Si' Teen -
18 97*
Davidson U
29 97*
S
tc97*
Davidson IMsrd Attack
29.97'
SubtogK "- U
20 00*
1st 8vt? ■■-. (.- U
47 00-
Subtoyic »
27 25-
Hayden Da Vin©- Hr>
24.75-
► So:nn.H.-i i
15 97"
Hayden Satgontll
25 75-
-.
Infocom OeaUbne ot
24 00'
Rftyi ,.-.■■ . '.-.. ■
Infocom Enchanter Pfanerfa'i
20 00-
► Spinnaker '■ •.■■■■■■
20 77*
.V
► Spinnaki-'
24 97*
Inlocorn Hiri 'i.»>t' GuKK J
20 00-
T.'Make-
25 00'
Inlocom ShU/HR • S '■ - ■
22 00-
Warnt' ■ 1
65 00"
In to., on-, " •
22 00'
Vide* •■■■.',
19 77-
Layered ' • • "
65 00-
Vide* Mac C N
25 17*
Mirage Concepts Tnvm
11 00'
Virtual Combtnalrc* M -
21 00*
BUSINESS SOFTWARE FOR YOUR APPLE // & MACINTOSH
(Please add S2 50 shipping and handling lor each "Hie ordered from below |
Apple Apple Works S165 00*
Borland IrrternationAi 30 00"
BP1 Gi AP AH PR or trVV 205 00'
Broderbund Bi- sr -Lr' rVr/ft- 4000*
Centra* Point Copy "Plus or Capy II Mat 20 00*
Funk Software S,aew»jrs 34.00'
Funsofl Uacasm 60.00*
Heba Habadex 40 00'
Heba Quarrel 10195*
Harvard Mac Manage 29 95'
►Human Edge Mr ,., 24.00'
►Human Edge SB* 110 00'
Human Edge I L^if'Pur>FCd«o-i£dgp 98 00'
► Uv^Videol««t ""■ ■ * ■ • M^C loo 6500*
Mam Street hier Mac Only 67 00'
MECA Managing you' Money 105.50"
► Microsoft ertfU I
►Mtcrcsoft t
► Micro*"* •.^.iiipian "c kUuntOiSi
Mtcrosor :•■■
Microsoft Charl Ho* Hi
Monogram f'm^'s J '■•■";:■ 'or Apple lit
M umU PMn (KUtam ft Sty-fi tor Ma
Odesta^i;. fo'M,i<:i'i'os'i%'g-. 5J"«
Provue OwyyuP Mfc '"•"'y
Sensible Surrwa re ■
Softcraft Fan
Sottech Microsystem*
Soltwarf Art*. -
Software Publishing
Stoneware ■
Tetos 'irevisron lot Mac
$102 00"
102 00"
102 00"
79 00*
66 00-
55 00-
'0 00-
200 00-
135 00-
67 50*
125 00*
140 00"
134 00"
68 00*
95 00'
87 50*
HARDWARE FOR YOUR APPLE //& MACINTOSH
(Please add shipping and handling charges found m rtahes ne»l lo price I
DISK DRIVES
Alp* JF *«M Oua* 4pp*e Owes ">
Ow Case
Apple MAC 4001(8 £xiernal Dm*
Corvus b bMS Ham Onve
lOmega Mai nouth bMO Removable
Onve lor Maonfosh
Micro Sci AS '43KB Ome
,.i*iC)wn
Mtcro Sci > >Oppy ConlroUet
r>PC Networh <40* EitemalOnve
lor Apple Ik
Rana£lrte' '63* Dr-vt-
nana En re u 3?6* Dtive
Rana Elite III 6b?K Drive
Tecmar 5Mfl Removable Onve lot MAC
Tecmar IQM8 MAC Drive
Tfecmar '■MB MAC 0"W UpgtaOe
BOARDS AND BUFFERS
ALS7 Engine
AST Mull' I'O-? senal'dor*
M-crosofi Premium SoRcanj *h
Microtek OumplrngiiCJ*f
Orange Micro Grapplei
Orange Micro Serial G/appfer
PC Network .'80 Card
Ouadram VH
Ouadram e RAM SO
Ouadram Mi. if. v, | (-',■
CIOCM E>pandat«r K> 25rJ*<
Thunderware '
Wholesale
S309 00'
(7 001
349 95'
(7 50*
939-00'
20 28)
1250 00*
27 001
150 00'
(5 001
55 00'
•2 50)
95 00-
12 501
225 00*
<S0Ol
320 00'
if 001
39899-
(10 001
999 00-
12 1 58,
999 00 1
12 1 581
1.235 00-
.'6 6Hi
5115 00-
155 00*
f"r 50)
243 67'
r' 50>
55 00*
i ,' SOi
66 00*
■
66 00*
-,'50,
35 00"
>2 50)
62.00*
88 00-
140 00*
fl 501
MODEMS
( hAicro/noaem tj w. S-nadLom
i Apple- Cat H
Prometheus f^OOA
low CosJ l?00 Baud inlet na! Mootvt
Pronwthaus Promoyt'r'i 1260
* -Ma. rack
Zoom Zoom; Modem ih
Whole <^ile
S1250O"
174 45"
27600' ' •>
■or Apple «
29900* • 00)
90 00-
Microrriodem C-ynpaftfe Fret? Do* Jones
ACCESSORIES
Apple M,i',.ii^' Ca .
Apple Mji miosh Numvnc Keypad
Hayes Mi. tittl royshc*
W/Firp BulfO" lor «B
Kensington Ousi Cover lor MAC
rxtm>p*r-*n '■ -
Kensmg-on
Kensmcrlon
Kensinglon
►KoalaM.. Wskn
Koala -■ atajMd ■'■■
MAR '■ .. ■ U ffl '-'
PC Network i ,i, ■'■!,.,■ I. ii wtlhSurtj
Ptok , fort Dual Oulhfta
PCNetwurk
PC Hctwork y
:
■ ■
Sony MAt ■--■-■
S69 00-
■ ; -
29 00-
■
69 00-
..
31 00*
j- 5DJ
ft .'V
■
54 00'
33 47*
.
56.97*
■
• 58 00*
ra.oo*
44 00"
■ Mi
25 00"
. -■■■
. ■■■■
2195-
■
22 95*
GAMES & EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE FOR YOUR IBM
(Please add 51 shipping and handling tor each title ordered Irom below ■.
AH
AH 'i'SC
Bluebush .
Bluechip '.'
Broderbund
CBS . • .'■;• : —
CB5*vf3Siermg---e$AT
CDEX rrainrngtor Wot
Comptehensivt
Davidson U
Davidson
Hayden Saroon n
Individual '-
Indrvidual ' ■
-Inrocom ' ■ • ■ .V '
Wholesale
S23 00* Iflntocom
23 00
1400
■
Microsoft '
Mouse Systems -
p,
28 25
19 75' Scarborough U
40 00' Sierra On-Lme "■■■
5000" SierraOn Line ■
37 25- Spectrum Holobyte GAM
32 00* ►Spinnaker
26.50* .'.'■■
36 50'
75 T5- a>Spinnaker
32 60' Ir-Spinnaker •.'
24 50' Sublogic nwjt.il '.'
2000" Virtual Combmalifs '.'
Wholesak
S24 00-
27 00*
59 95*
27 00*
27 00"
18 00*
18.00"
15 97'
24 97"
20 77
20 00*
21 00-
BUSINESS SOFTWARE FOR YOUR IBM
(Please add 52 50 shipping and handling lor each title ordered Irnm below I
»Ashlon late ■>- -.
»AsMon Ti-.
Boiland
Borland - A - -
Borland .. ; ■ ke\
■'■■ung
Breakthrough n
►Central Potni . . -"
Conceptual InstrumenU Oes* Oryar»/e'
Digital Research . — i ooo
Digital Research <■ ■»! OeskfPp
Digital Research ,- n Oaw
Fnertromcs I •- i <.>hK$ mrth Plotter Option
Funk Software SiOewWft
►Harvard ''inaopr
Harvard "o la I Proivc t Manager
► Mayes ■" - -*^"/T*tWfmuiaio»
► Human Edge '•" M.iriaor<frkfril Edge
► Human Edge "m SarMMp-i
►Human Edge Mmo i 1 o*e#
Lilelree -
► totus Deveic<>m««*l I *** t 2-3
MDBS"'. -.■■•-."••-•". *"•?
MicroPro yVurttei^r ,'fiOO
5365 00- MicroPro .*.
365 00- MKTioHim
25 75- MfCTosoft
26 00" Microsofl .V
32 00* Mtcrosofl U
305 00' Microsoft Moo^v
26500' Monogram//, : i .-.',.,<
4800* "t-Mulbmate Mi,n,rFi.,/r ii .-f",' .'■ trong
23000' Norton Ncvlyn tmuue'. I
20.00" Oasis ■'■•> Word "-"i/s
15700- Open Systems > Salt A nrVVG-i.'-
75 00- Team Mt/-
25 00* Power Base fl caj p t Bast
73.00* Real Wertd G J A/PA«,».ie inv
190.00* nosesott FVo*cy V*f*r-fJOn 3
34 00* Ryan McFartartd KM C(M<
17S00* ►Samrva S*miia in IVord P ■■■■< ■
225 00- ►Samna rVprd
M00* ►Satahle Software v*y,t -'i"; ■ ■
137 50* Softcr-rft Fancy Fonc
1 1000* Software Arts 'K" Solve-
2650* SothwarePubltshiOBPFS hie Wmtr 6'ai
1 35.00" Software Pubhshtog ' ' FtepOft
265 00- Sorctm S ,. .- ..
295 00* Xanare AhrfiJy
2t9 DO-
HARDWARE FOR YOUR IBM
(Please add shipping and handling charges lound in italics rteit to pnee )
DISK DRIVES Wholesale
S2 2O0 0O* :
73000'
93000- -20 iOl
MEMORY CHIPS
MONITORS
»64K Memory Upgrade X« s .. ,
Quantity Dtstou'
► 64* Dynamic Bam tfwps l£ai I
► 2S6K Dynamic Ram Ch«s £a
► 128K IBM AT Piggyback Chips K
EXTERNAL MODEMS
Anchor StO"-'-'-
Kayes ■•
Hayes SmarfrriooVm V0C
Haves ■■.'■■.'-■
Smarltom II VHOC tmulaloi
Hayes Sma-imodern t^OOB Atont-
►Hayes Sm.iflrnodem 2400
Prometheus Prcrf-movrn i^LX'
Eiternal "OO*^ Mayes Cornpart*-*
► U S Rc4»OtiC« Ccv-er ^4008F*S M»>den'
► US Robotic* '3
■
.i 00*
',00'
■
EMS
S205 00 1
125 00-
340 00*
317 00*
■
26500"
535 00*
276 00"
reooj
450 tw-
igs 00*
Amdek . ■•■
SI iooo-
■
AjmcM
120 00'
a,Ti.>ek
130 00-
Amdek * ■
215 00-
4 - 4
Amdek' i.
365 00*
Amdek r.,hir TOO-Uffia Htqh Ren
455 00'
, ■ -
Amdek ** Ww NonGtan
. ■
Princeton "
Princeton MA « <2e
CM 1
WOt* mil
Ouadram
370 00*
)*i
■■ ■
► Samsung V ' ": ISM '.. •
■ ■ ■
maflolacfu-e it IBM m
Taian 440 Super Hi ft
495 00*
■ | ..
Currently Ava.tauf * — M
■
Zenith .'vM \230A in
TERMS & CONDITIONS
•PC NETWORK -Members pay just 8*f-* above the wholesale price, plus shipping All pnOM relied a 3"* ctsh Oiscounl
Minimum shipping S2 50 per order International orders call Icr shipping * handling cti.ng.-s. Personal checks please
allow 10 working days to clear All prices sutyecl to change without ,iotice'
i RENT BtEFfDRE YOU BUY -Members are el-gtble to -oio the NET WORK s Bustnetis and Game software Rental Ubranes
and evaluate products tor a lull 14 (Regular) or 30 I VIP) days to see if it meets you' needs And The NE TWORK s lenlal
charges are far less than other software -etMal serv-ces- Jusl 20**. OF TME MEMBER WHOlE SALE FWICE Rental UH«
available in IBal/Appto/llAC and CP/TH Formate Hardware pr.ces highnied by ► retlecl recent ma(« pr
■ redui '"nn 1 -
460 00* -< ; .-li
59 00"
I 93.00- ...
2,37500* i5J Wi
Maynard'A:"' * (0MS MWrna HartfOrsk
MaynafdWS I -V i
SaridlUH
►PCMetwork mm ■'■
AuMMOl Q'"-t t*t * m I
. i"i,gj"c 7aisc*pn
PC ^■etwon\ <0Mr3 Tape SJCtuC
Sam, ■
►PC Ne*wr_fV
► Tanoon 'M 'uu . I,., 't^'i: . .-. ,jL l.-..
Taligrass ?SA49f ■•*»« i
*ilh 'OMP M*p« Backup
► Teac FD 55-fl Hair Metqr* Oi'l'OOrnres
► Teac I 2MB Hail Hright 0<*.r< uuvt lor AS
MULTIFUNCTION CARDS
Apparat AT Ram Evpfli J1390O"
► ASTS.. Pac* Pbl rV)fh64A 19500"
AST UO Pius M 12000"
USTs infagclbr AI 35500'
- > 16000*
► PCHetw« M » 6900*
PC Network * 9 °°'
■on y ■•>■'■
■ ■
►PC Network 69 00'
Ouadram boatOwO* 170 00*
tecmar " - - 14600'
MODEMS
AST ■■■
init.'M- Movent
Haves 5ma-*r-ot>pm tr'OOe wWh Mew
5- r ur re , m */■ ■/> WJO f muUtiy
Hayes Smarinjodcm 1P00B Alone
Prometheus Promodem 1 200B Internal
Ouadram (juad'imdem H '200 Baud
HaH Card wCrpssralk *"W
S262 00"
300 00-
220 00'
205 00"
95 00"
107 00"
95 00*
190 00'
46 00-
75 00'
ea 275 00-
197 00"
*.: 325 00'
65 00*
520 00*
227 00*
320 00'
190 00"
125 00-
200 00
68 00"
64 00*
169 00*
252 SO-
Wholesale
S345 00-
265 00*
225 00*
275 00*
VIDEO CARDS
Hercules S142 00*
t. Hercules M'"" ,r ' - -"< Oq-MMCSf ■<"-' 26300*
r»in>m fiTrn n-n-r*"* # *-" 235.00-
IkPCNetwc— 105 00*
■
►PC Network Col"' Cart* 80.00'
Persyst Son i'-ho Ultra Mn.jh HfM «- ' •'•?' 299.00*
► STBw IP*) . Plus" 199W
ACCESSORIES
►8.ar^f*arTwD^'t»Dtske«es *»«■
■ '.
►DS/DO Bulk Rate Special 59* t
. ■ ■
■■
►PC Netw.irt. ■ ■ ■ I (0 Wa" 82 00"
IBM Pi P »vt?i Supply '• ,. ,
Cap.i ■■.■•■'
■
SIM" 9W "
.. ..■.'■ -■■ .
COMPLETE SYSTEMS
Apple '■' -
ATAT ■ ■
■ ■
ATat
COMPAQ '•".c'''- ".-.'• Backu) ■■■»■'■''
,-. • 41 - I ' ■■■... ,
■ „ ■ "
S2 2J5 00*
►COMPAQ '
...
► IBM * ' 495 0?"
, _. M 1 749 00*
,8M I MB 2 79600' i(
IBM Al ProreSSrOfial Syslem CALL
:..ii, , Mfi Man- ■- I • ■ '
PRINTERS
► CiHien '.•
► Crti/en MS
| F'ii rra(
►Citizen M 1 .'
POOCPSiBfX QJ '•" ''■•'
► CitnenWS'
► Epson •
►Epson FJ 1-
► Epson-> ""j-'
Epson
■llf.l I
Epson f 1 ' ■
■
► NEC
H4EC
► NEC
S265 00-
350 00"
350 00*
49900-
199 00"
799 00*
479 00*
799 00*
1 359 00*
S69 00"
60S 00-
605 00*
988 00-
►NEC
► NEC EtSi
► NEC ..,-..
►Ok-dalaMl '-'.
., -,m Model FHK IBMGi •■.
►OkrdalaM' 192 ■■■■■■■■
►Otttd-ttt Coto* 70B0CPS
. , ■_ Uodt* ISM
■
► OhKiaia '!'"•' ■"■■■■..
Co** 20
OkNlalaU -
OkidaiaMi
OkK5ata..i.'['''KiM-n.„i.. (50COI
Qume Spn/il 1V4Q401 PSlettetQto
Star Micronics Pmm type wcps
I ,-!,-■
Toshiba' '■: 9 H '-JJCPS
Tostiib.i ■
5 9M00-
1330 00
-
■>woo-
200 00-
■
65 00*
S99 00'
533 00' ■
1.620 00*
ify 115500*
300 00*
450 00-
975 00*
IBM PC BASE
SYSTEM
IBMPCw/256K
Floppy Drive Controller
2 Double Sided Double
Density Disk Drives
Mix and Match with
your favorite Monitor
and Printer!
IBM PC
HARD DISK SYSTEM
IBM PC W/256K
Floppy Drtve Controller
I Double Sided Double
Density Disk Dnve
Halt Height 10MB
Disk Subsystem
IIIIMMII
$1,495.02* it ^-$1,749.00
^ fomsmm
IBM PC/AT
SYSTEM
Available NOW!!
Call lor the
Configuration
ol your choice
CALL f on
LATEST IBM
ANNOUNCEMENTS
CUSTOM
CONFIGURATIONS
WELCOME
PORTABLE
HARD DISK SYSTEM
W256K/ 1 Floppy/ 10MB Hard Disk
IO
$2,235.00*.
$2,369.00
/10MB
W/20MB
APPLE lie
TM
DESKPRO SYSTEM
WITH TAPE BACKUP
640K CPU/ 1 Floppy/ 10MB Hard Disk
10MB Tape Drive/Monitor
$2,951.94
$3,151.94
w/10MB
w/20MB
APPLE lie
Toirtl
W
T+*
EPSON PRINTERS
Unbelievable Low Prices!!!
$$&»
*Jllff , '"'*' l" '
LX-80 80COL7100CPS
FX-85 80COL/160CPS
FX-185 132COI./160CPS
LQ-1500 132COL/200CPS
$199.00*
299.00*
429.00*
799.00*
MACINTOSH
SYSTEMS
64K IBM PC MEMORY EXPANSION KITS
Quantity Discounts Available. ^*.
Guaranteed for Life! ^ Jgt ^k
^Bm ^P? *»■' Quantity of
^r ^' <tq Q fi
## #
Quantity of 100 Sets
v>\J.yD perset
Set of 9 Chips
$5.40*
CALL TOLL FREE
1-800-621-S-A-V-E
In llhncHS call (312) 280-0002
Your Membership Validation Number B3Z5
You can validate your membership number and, if you wish.
place your first money- saving order over the phone by using
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COMPUTER CONFERENCING
CROSS-SYSTEM
CONFERENCING
WITH CLACR
BY Sherwin M. Levinson
Microcomputers may offer a way
to link systems and cut costs
MOST PEOPLE HAVE probably used
one or more electronic mail systems,
bulletin-board systems (BBSs), or
computer conferencing systems
(CCSs). As on-line communications
systems proliferate, many barriers
make it difficult for any individual to
regularly use more than a few of
them. If you know people on several
different systems, it may be hard to
keep track of who is on which system.
Also, command structures are incon-
sistent from one system to the next.
Then there's the cost. To reach all the
people you want, you need to access
a number of systems that may charge
for connect time, involve extra phone
charges, or both.
By linking systems you could have
a broader base of potential con-
ference participants without the dif-
ficulties described above. You could
communicate with a large pool of
people who closely match your own
specific interests without having to
remember which system they are on
or what the command structure for
that system is. Any solution to the
problem of linking systems must also
take cost factors into account and pro-
vide an affordable means of commu-
nicating across systems.
What 1 propose is a personal com-
puter communications program that
provides timed automatic log-on to
multiple systems, offers an index of in-
coming messages according to pre-
specified categories, and allows the
organization of computer conferences
that span multiple BBSs, CCSs, and
electronic mail systems. Cross-system
conferences should be accomplished
with no additional effort on the part
of the conference's organizer or any
of its members by porting the con-
ference entries from each host system
to all of the other systems where the
conference is taking place.
I call the proposed software I will
describe here the Conference Linker
and Cost Reducer (CLACR). As the
name implies, CLACR (pronounced
"clacker") is intended to link con-
ferences taking place on separate sys-
tems and to reduce the cost of using
messaging systems. It also aims to ad-
dress the other barriers to use de-
scribed above.
The design goals for a full imple-
mentation of CLACR are as follows:
1. To make possible a computer con-
ference whose participants span
several different computer confer-
encing systems.
2. To make possible true computer
conferencing on BBS and electronic
mail systems.
3. To reduce the cost of participating
in computer conferencing; especially,
to reduce the cost sufficiently to make
up for the additional cost of copying
conference entries from one system
to another.
4. To make participation on numerous
different systems easier by providing
a consistent user interface; to make
that interface one that can be tailored
to each user's preference.
5. To make the process of composing,
sending, retrieving, and organizing
messages easier.
6. To let users communicate with any
other users without needing to
remember what conferencing systems
[continued)
After a 1 3-year management career, Sher-
win M. Levinson left big business to devote
full time to his consulting practice. He can be
reached at POB 888231. Atlanta, GA
30356.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 273
CLACR
they are on or what IDs they use on
those systems.
7. To operate effectively without any
changes required to the host messag-
ing systems themselves.
The list is certainly ambitious, but it's
quite possible to do using established
programming techniques.
To accomplish these goals. CLACR
must maintain a database containing
several different tables of information.
These are System Data for each
remote system used. User Data for
each user involved in correspon-
dence, Conference Data, Message
Pointers, Message Text, Inbox
pointers to messages received but not
Table 1: The System Data table contains essential information about each
remote system.
Internal system code
For each access method (different networks, direct dial):
Phone number
Sequence required to connect to target system
Unique costs
Log-on sequence (account, password, etc.)
Type of system (BBS, CCS, or electronic mail)
Commands to reach BBS, CCS, or electronic mail system
Cost details by data-transfer rate, time of day, day of week, etc.
Holiday schedule
Downtime schedule
Activity history
Effective data-transfer rate history
Cost history
Maximum weekly cost
Use history (e.g., average messages retrieved per session)
Desired frequency of message retrieval
Command translation table
Table 2: The User Data table contains necessary data for each person involved
in correspondence.
Internal user code
User nickname
"Real" name
For each system where this user is active:
Internal system code
The user's name on that system
Optional, address, phone numbers, comments, etc
Table 3: The Conference Data table contains all the information necessary to
organize and manage a conference. Message number and author's internal user
code together uniquely define this conference and point to the text of the opening
statement stored in the Message Text table.
Message number
Author's internal user code
Conference nickname
List of addressees and system where each invitation was sent
Public or private
List of joiners and system from which each joiner participates
List of conference organizers
read, and Outbox pointers to mes-
sages to be transmitted (see tables 1
through 7 for detailed contents).
These tables contain the information
CLACR needs to achieve its goals.
Message Format
CLACR is to be designed so that the
organizer of a cross-system con-
ference is the only one who absolute-
ly must have CLACR. In fact, members
of the cross-system conference who
participate in a computer confer-
encing system don't even need to
know that there's anything unusal
about their conference; to them it will
just seem that there's a higher level
of activity than usual and they'll notice
that some of the entries have a few
odd lines at the top.
CLACR expects the first couple of
lines of the body of each cross-system
conference entry to conform to a
specific format. The standard CLACR
message format can be used on any
messaging system and provides infor-
mation about message routing and
message type on the first line of text.
Messages imported by CLACR also
contain a second line describing the
origins of the message. Because the
CLACR header information is part of
the message text as far as the host
system is concerned, CLACR mes-
sages are totally transparent to the
host system. This scheme doesn't sig-
nificantly detract from the message's
readability for those not using CLACR,
and it allows CLACR to scan messages
as they're being received to deter-
mine if they are to be saved by
CLACR.
Message types include the follow-
ing: conference entries, requests to
join, requests to leave, conference in-
vitations, requests for a joiner list, and
private messages. As shown in table
4, each message pointer contains a
message number and message
author. If individual systems cannot
be relied on to provide some mes-
sage identification that is at least
unique to that author on that system,
CLACR could provide message num-
bers such that the message number
and message author information
[conlinued]
274 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
VTERM. THE FASTEST \SAY
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© 1985, Coefficient Systems Corp. TM signifies manufacturer's trademark.
Inquiry 62
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 275
CLACR
together uniquely identify any
message.
Participants on a BBS will need to
understand those odd lines placed at
the top of the messages by the con-
ference organizer's CLACR program (if
they're to fully appreciate the discus-
sion] because these messages will be
interspersed with the normal message
traffic of the BBS. They'll also need to
Table 4: The Message Pointers contain the header information needed to
identify a message. CLACR uses this information to assemble the CLACR
header if the message is being sent to a BBS or electronic mail system.
Message number
Location of text
Length
Subject
Author's internal user code
System of origin
Addressees (individuals or conferences)
For each addressee:
Date/time to be sent
Date/time actually sent
Is acknowledgment requested?
Is reply requested?
Table 5: The actual text of a message is stripped of any CLACR header lines
and stored in the Message Text table. Use of separate pointers and text speeds
identification and retrieval of message text.
Message number
Length
Text
Table 7: The CLACR Outbox contains pointers to messages to be transmitted.
Message number
Location of text
Author's name on destination system
Destination system
Addressees (individuals or conferences)
For each addressee:
Date/time to be sent
Date/time actually sent
Is acknowledgment requested?
Is reply requested?
Table 6: The CLACR \nbox contains pointers
read.
to
messages
received but
not
yet
Message number
Location of text
Length
Subject
Author's name on system of origin
System of origin
manually enter such lines in their own
messages if they want them ported to
the other systems hosting the con-
ference. Of course, if they too were
using CLACR, all these things would
be taken care of automatically and
they would receive their BBS mes-
sages organized by conference rather
than strict chronology.
A cross-system conference would
appear most foreign to those par-
ticipating from an electronic mail
system because by its nature a mail
system forces all such conferences to
be private. Again, CLACR would be
helpful but not necessary to such con-
ference participants. They could add
their own comments to the con-
ference by manually entering a
header line showing the conference
to which the comments are directed
and then sending the message to the
conference organizer. The organizer's
CLACR would forward the message
not only to the conference members
on other systems but also to those on
the same electronic mail system.
Since virtually all messaging
systems provide your name as part of
the message header, this need not be
repeated on the first line of the text.
(For internal purposes, once a mes-
sage has been received, CLACR uses
the unique internal user code as
found in the User Data table based on
the system of origin and the message
author's name on that system.) The
first line of text in a message conform-
ing to CLACR's specifications contains
a two-character combination identify-
ing a CLACR header line, message-
type code, message number, message
number of target conference, urgent
flag, reply-requested flag, acknowl-
edgment-requested flag, type-
dependent information such as sub-
ject or title of conference, and
checksum (optional if the header was
created manually).
The actual messages received dur-
ing a connect session are scanned as
they are received to check for a
CLACR header line. If the CLACR
header line is present and contains a
checksum, the checksum is verified; if
verification fails, CLACR requests the
(continued)
276 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
To keep yourself from being burned to a crisp
by a fire-breathing dragon, just cast a nitfol spell.
Oops. Make that agondar spell.
ne moment you're slipping the first disk of
The Enchanter Trilogy in your computer—
the next you're a novice magician, chosen
by fate to battle an evil that threatens the
I very foundations of magic. And since
you're the main character, every decision
I you make will determine the story's out-
come. Suppose, for instance, that when faced with a giant
fire-breathing dragon you decide to cast a nitfol spell, which
allows you to converse with beasts in their own tongue.
You simply type, in plain English:
>CAST THE NITFOL SPELL ON THE DRAGON
And the story responds:
THE DRAGON PAUSES AND ROARS OUT
A BENEVOLENT GREETING, WHICH, TO
YOUR CHAGRIN, FRIES YOU TO A
DELICATE CRISP. YOU HAVE DIED.
Suppose, on the other hand, you decide to
invoke a spell that quenches open flames:
>CAST THE GONDAR SPELL ON THE
DRAGON
In that case the story responds:
THE DRAGON'S FLAME IS
DOUSED IN A TORRENT Of
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DISAPPEARS WITH A
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As you pro-
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learn and the puzzles you
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proportions. But so will gf
your powers. Conquer the ■ *
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and you'll be elevated from
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And along the way you'll face situations that are as lively
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Progress from Standard Level ENCHANTER* to new Expert Level
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For more information call l-8O0-262-«8()8. Or write to us at
125 CambridgePark Dr.. Cambridge. MA 02140
.vailable for most personal computers.
Inquiry 178
n
CLACR
system to resend that particular mes-
sage. Once a valid CLACR header line
has been received, the message is
saved if it is directed to a conference
that is organized or joined by the
owner of this CLACR system. CLACR
also checks if the acknowledgment-
requested flag is on and, if so, im-
mediately places an acknowledgment-
of-receipt message in the Outbox.
If there is no CLACR header line
present, CLACR can scan the entire
text for sets of keywords that you have
specified to identify non-CLACR mes-
sages of interest. In this way CLACR
could even scan for messages that
might be relevant to ongoing con-
ferences. It might also be desirable to
Atron's PC/AT Bugbusters
Hardware-assisted Software Debuggers for Bullet-proof PCI AT-based Products
A BUGBUSTER STORY
Brad Crain, a project
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FILE), relates the follow-
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with me, and fly to
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Mr. Crain concludes:
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ARE YOU TRYING TO DO SOMETHING SCAREY?
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1
119
2
30
3
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96
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96
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12
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12
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11
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14
13
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24
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18
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27
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-
30
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■
1 Lyn
HOW BUGBUSTERS KEEP YOU FROM GETTING SLIMED
The AT PROBE is a circuit board that
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allow a provision to always skip mes-
sages that contain certain keywords or
were authored by certain users.
Once all incoming messages have
been received, CLACR reviews the
contents of the Outbox and sends all
messages that are destined for this
system and that do not indicate a
delivery date and time later than the
current date and time. As each mes-
sage is sent, it is removed from the
Outbox. This is also when any special
commands are sent to the host sys-
tem for execution; these would in-
clude such functions as deletion of
old entries, modification of access
permissions, modification of con-
ference joiner lists, and so on.
CLACR adds a second header line
to the messages it ports to other
systems. This line identifies the author
of the message, the system where it
originated, and the date and time of
its entry.
Inbox Processing
While CLACR is connected to a
remote system, messages that are to
be saved are placed in an input buf-
fer where they're held until after
CLACR disconnects. They are then
scanned to create the Inbox, Message
Pointer, and Message Text entries as
well as a portion of the Outbox. The
Outbox is key to cross-system con-
ferencing because through it con-
ference entries made on one system
get to all the others where the same
conference is active.
Likewise, special CLACR messages
representing requests to join or leave
a conference or to get a copy of the
full list of conference members are
processed at this stage. Exactly how
these are processed depends on the
types of systems where the con-
ference is active (BBS, CCS, or E-mail)
and whether the conference is public
or private. These concepts are dis-
cussed further in the next section.
When input-buffer processing is
complete, you are notified that there
are messages in the Inbox. These may
be retrieved in various ways, including
by keywords, by author, by subject, by
system of origin, and by conference.
[continued)
278 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 28
AT™ Pfantasies for your PC or XT.™
Want better speed and memory on your
PC or XT without buying an AT?
You've got it!
Phoenix's new Pfaster™286 co-processor
board turns your PC or XT into a high-
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AT Three times faster than an XT. It even
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But that's only the beginning.
You can handle spreadsheets and programs
you never thought possible. Set up RAM disks in
both 8088 and 80286 memory for linkage editor
overlays or super-high-speed disk caching. All with
Pfaster286's lmb of standard RAM. expandable to
2mb, and dual-mode design.
You can develop 8086/186/286 software on your XT
faster. Execute 95 percent of the application packages
that run on the AT, excluding those that require fancy I/O
capabilities your PC or XT hardware just isn't designed
to handle. Queue multi-copy, multi-format print jobs for
spooling. Or, switch to native 8088 mode to handle
hardware-dependent programs and
back again without rebooting. All with
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And, Pfaster286 does the job unintrusively!
No motherboard to exchange. No wires to
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If you really didn't want an AT in the first
place, just what it could do for you, call or
write: Phoenix Computer Products Corp..
320 Norwood Park South, Norwood, MA
02062; (800) 344-7200. In Massachusetts,
617-762-5030.
Programmers' Pfantasies™
XT and AT are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Pfasicr286 and Programmers' Pfantasies are trademarks of Phoenix Computer Products Corporation
For the Ferrari aficionado: yes. we know this is a rear engine car. We are showing the addition of a second engine to symbolize how Pfastcr can be added to your PC or XT to increase performance
Inquiry 284
DECEMBER
BYTE 279
CLACR
The number of messages falling into
each of these categories may also be
displayed. You may store several stan-
dard Inbox processing methods and
choose the desired one each time the
Inbox is reviewed.
As each message in the Inbox is dis-
played, you may compose a reply and
specify that it be directed privately to
the message author, to the conference,
or both. Of course, it's not necessary
to reply, but CLACR will remind you
to do so if the reply-requested flag is
on. You may forward the message to
other individuals and conferences,
adding comments if desired. The mes-
sage may also be left in the Inbox,
either specifying a category or having
it by default held in a "pending"
category. Finally, action on the mes-
sage may be deferred until some
future date and time, in which case it
is kept in the Inbox but not displayed
until the specified date and time.
For each message in a conference
you organize, you are asked if the
message is to be ported to the other
systems where the conference is ac-
tive. While porting would normally be
chosen, you have the option of not
porting all notes. This can help avoid
duplication and keep costs down. If
porting is approved, appropriate Out-
box pointers are created. Then the
next time CLACR is connected to each
of these systems, the appropriate
messages are transmitted. In this way
all the discussion from all the systems
where this conference is active ap-
pears on every one of these systems.
The final action on each message is
to specify whether it is to be kept in
the Message Text table (and Message
Pointer table) or purged. If it is to be
kept, a retention period may be
specified: a default retention will
apply if none is specified. Regardless
of the retention period chosen, any
message for which an Outbox entry
exists will be held until the Outbox
entry is cleared.
A simple full-screen editor would be
available when you want to enter
replies and new messages. Since mes-
sages destined for electronic messag-
ing systems are usually brief, the
CLACR editor is relatively unsophis-
ticated. Still, it would be far more
usabie than the line editor typically
found in messaging systems, and it
would be easier to learn, since the
same editor would be used for all
systems.
New messages may be addressed
to any combination of users and con-
ferences. And here is where one of
CLACR's most valuable features
comes into play. Addressees are
specified by conference or user
nicknames of your choosing: you
need not keep track of the proper
[continued]
MSCLAT1
FxMYr^KVj users can share the advantage to
LATI, Just take off your main KAYPRO board and put
LAT1-K into your cabinet.
All advantage of LATI is yours now/
MSCMTC
ZENET NETWORK through twist pair
• 6Mhz HD64B180 (Z80 upward compatible ) 51 2K
byte on board (256K installed, 384K RAM DISK)
• LANZENETport 800K baud CSMA CD twist pair bus
type upto 500 meters HDLC
• Floppy: 3.5, 5 and 8 inch, d/s density, d/s sided and
dls track automatic desity/format checking
• Hard disk: SCSI interface on board
• Video: 80 X 24 characters (color) and 640 X 200
pixies color graphic 1 28K byte video RAM character
set is dowloaded from disk
• Timer: battery back up calendar
WORLD SMALLEST COMPUTER
• Full personal CPIM system in palm 4mhz Z80 256K • OS.: CP/M plus bank version
CP/M plus <s a registered trademark of Digital Research Inn
Z80 <s a registered trademark of Zilog Inc
Turbo Dos is a registered trademark of Software\200Q Inc
Mountain Side Computer and ZENET are trademark of Southern Pacific Limited
• Serial: RS232C X2andTTLXl
• Pararell: Centronics type, 16 bit TTL, 7/8
bit keyboard port (32 characters FIFO)
• OS: Turbo Dos, MP/M (multiuser)
banked CP/M plus (single user)
• Size: 10X6 inch 4 layered
• Assembled and tested
• BIOS source code available
• Completely faster than other Z80SBC
MSCPCX
8088 expansion card for LATI soon available
RAM (128K RAM DISK)
• Serial: RS232C X 2 automatic baud rate checking
• Pararell Centronics type printer port
• Floppy: 3.5 inch micro floppy disk drive 800K byte
(option 5, 3.5 inch drive d/s sided d/s track. automatic
density checking)
> BIOS source code available
• Completely faster than other Z80SBC
MSC-MTC/P
Full assembled pcb of MTC
Under $189 in OEM quantity
^
Full featured CP/1M plus system
• Z80 4mhz 1 28K Byte RAM Floppy: 3 5, 5 and
8 inch d/s density, d/s sided and d/s track upto 4 disk
drives Automatic density/ format check
• Serial: RS232CX 2
• Pararell Centronics type, 16 bits I/O, 7/8 bit
keyboard port
• Timer: battery back up calendar
• Video: 80 X 24 high speed CRT controller
• OS.: CP/M plus bank version included
• Size: 10X6 inch 4 layered
• BIOS source code available
• DRI CP/M plus manual $50
• New word word processor program for
MSC-ICO ADD $50
• Completely faster than other Z80SBC^
MSCHCS
^P
Distributors
England-Quanta systems
Denmark-Danbit
Finland-BB Soft
India-Betamatix PVT Ltd.
— — Manufacturer and international distributer
01253 8423 SOUTHERN PACIFIC LIMITED
03-662020 Sanwa Bldg.. 2-16-20 Minamisaiwai, Nishi, Yokohama. JAPAN 220
90-692-6297 Phone: 045-314-9514 Telex: 3822320 SPACIF J
0812-71989 Advanced single board computer technology company
Expansion card tor ICO
RAM disk (upto 2M byte) and SCSI hard disk
interface card for ICO with installation program
USA distributer ■
SOUTHERN PACIFIC
COMPUTER PRODCTS U.S.A., INC.
PO.BOX 4427, Berkeley. CA 94704-0427 U.S.A. .
Phone 415-253-1270
Dealer and distributer inquiries welcome
280 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 338
DOES YOUR
HI-RES GRAPHICS
BOARD SHOW
YOU ONIY PART
OFASPREADSHEE
When it comes to printing out
spreadsheets, most IBlVTcompatible
graphics boards come up short.
But not the Genoa Spectrum™
Color/Mono/Graphics Board.
what you're doing. On the screen.
And on paper.
But the best part is, you don't
have to pay more to do it. Here's why:
Up until now, if you wanted
The Spectrum Color/Graphics Board is the most compatible board you can buy. Which means it runs the most
software. Including Flight Simulator"' Lotus' 1-2-3™ Symphony™ SideKklC PC Paint,™ and much, much more.
It goes all the way to 132 columns.
The largest text display of any
graphics board you can buy There's
even a special driver that'll show
you 132 columns of Lotus, which
normally only has 80.
And together with your 132-
column printer, the Spectrum can
also print every one of those 132
columns. So you can see more of
Spectrum is a trademark of Genoa Systems Corporation. © 1985 Genoa Systems Corporation.
Inquiry 152
both graphics and color, you had to
buy two boards. One for hi-res
mono graphics, one for color
But the Genoa Spectrum puts
color and graphics on the same
board. So you save yourself a slot.
And about $250.
You can also save yourself the
price of a color monitor. Because
Spectrum will emulate your color
software in monochrome. And for
your monochrome software there's
a 720x348 hi-res mode.
So either way, you're covered.
Spectrum is compatible with all
color and monochrome monitors.
So you'll always get 16 beauti-
ful colors in color. Or 16 shades
of monochrome in mono.
For all the technical specs
or the Genoa Spectrum dealer
nearest you, just call us at
408-945-9720. Or write Genoa
Systems Corporation, 73 E.Trimble
Road, San Jose, CA 95131.
The Genoa Spectrum. It's the
only board you'll ever need for color,
graphics, and full size output.
Anything else is either too much
money or incomple
Genoa
We make IBM PCs better
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 281
Inquiry 47 for End-Users.
Inquiry 48 for DEALERS ONLY.
BUILD YOUR OWN IBM XT &
IBM AT COMPATIBLE SYSTEMS
Introducing XT-16 Self-Assembly Kit
At Super Low Cost
• Including 640K XT-16 CPL Mother Board, Color
Graphic Card. Floppy Controlle r, One DS/D D Slim
Drive, Flip-Top Case,
13S W Power Supply.
Keyboard. Assembly
Instruction, and User's
Svstem Manual
ONLY $775.00
XT, AT CASE
• Same Dimension as
IBM PC/AT
• For IBM PC/AT & Com-
patible Mother Boards
$115.00
• Flip-Top For Easy &
Quick Access to Inside
• IBM Jtofc&Ude-In Case
Alsi
$69.1
XT, AT POWER SUPPLY
XT-1.55W
(SideOr Rear Switch:
XT- 1 50 W
AT- 200 W
$ 89.00
$115.00
$165.00
XT, AT KEYBOARD
\T— LED for Cap
Lock & Num. Lock
Big Return Kev &
Shift Ke\
$^9.00
-Same Layout as
IBM PC/AT
S 10900
XT. AT MOTHER BOARD
XT-16-II MOTHER BOARD
• IBM PC/XT Fully Compatible
• 8088 Microprocessor w/8087 Optional
• 8 I/O Slots, up to 640K on Board
Assembled & Tested w/BlOS
With 256K on Board $265.00
With (wOK on Board $349.00
AT- 3 2 CPl Mother Board
• IBM PC/AT Fully Compatible
• 80286 Microprocessor w/80287 Optional
• 6-tOK Standard, Upgradable to 1 MB on Board
• On Board Clock Calendar
• 8 I/O Slots $Call
PC/AT ADD-ON CARD
• ATS 1 MB Memory Card $Call
• ATS 1.5 MB Multifunction Card SCall
• ATS Hard & Floppy Drive Controller $Call
• PCP-128 Eprom Programmer $139.00
• Disk I/O Card (handle 2 Floppy Drive, Serial
2nd Optional), Parallel. Game, Clock w/cables
& Software $149.00
• Color Graphic Card $ 95.00
• Floppy Disk controller
( handle 4 drives) $ 59.00
• Multi-Function (OK) $139.00
• OEM Dealers Welcome
• Please Call For Our Special Dealer Price
C.J. COMPUTERS CORP.
(Manufacturer & Distributor)
2-124 W Ball Road, STE B
Anaheim, CA 92804
Mail Order HM Line: ("14) 82 1-8922. ("14) 821-8923
(IBM is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation)
282 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
CLACR
destination systems— this information
is retrieved by CLACR from the User
Data and Conference Data tables.
Either of these tables could be
scanned through windows during
message creation and editing.
Cross-System Conferencing
Several concepts have already been
alluded to without being fully ex-
plained. There are certain basic func-
tions present in any viable computer
conferencing system regardless of
what the system authors choose to
call these functions. So while one sys-
tem may use the command COM-
POSE, another WRITE, and a third
SAY, all three mean the same thing:
Accept text that, once entered, is to
be made available to particular other
users of the system. This function re-
quires that the system be told to
whom the text is to be made avail-
able, the subject of the transmission,
and the text itself.
Recognition of the list of basic func-
tions is essential to our design
because CLACR must provide a way
to accomplish each of these on any
system it uses. The basic functions
available to all users include message
creation, message addressing, mes-
sage retrieval (both new and previous-
ly received), message deletion, join-
ing and leaving conferences, access-
ing lists of joiners, and finding active
conferences. Functions available to
conference organizers include con-
ference creation, management of con-
ference access, management of reten-
tion periods, and deletion of con-
ferences and individual messages.
That is far from a complete list, but
it conveys the idea of what basics
must be accomplished in any viable
conferencing system. Some of these
basic functions assume other com-
ponents. For example, message crea-
tion assumes the ability to edit text
that's already been entered, to
retrieve and use text of previous mes-
sages, to forward received messages
to other users, and so on.
The User Interface
The first step in designing CLACR's
user interface is to provide a CLACR
command for each of the basic func-
tions. Ease of use dictates typical
design considerations such as the
ability to perform any function with a
single command, the ability to pro-
vide user-defined synonyms for each
command, recognition of the shortest
unique abbreviation for commands,
display of a list of possible choices
when a nonunique abbreviation or
possible misspelling is entered, the
availability of context-sensitive help,
and, perhaps, a dual menu-driven and
command-driven interface that lets
you graduate to the briefer command-
driven interface (once you have
learned the command set) but still
provides guidance when needed.
The set of basic conferencing func-
tions is directly available on a com-
puter conferencing system. However,
if you are to extend conferencing to
BBS and mail systems, the effects of
some of these commands must be
synthesized. Further, for a conference
that spans several systems, even if
these are computer conferencing sys-
tems, some of the native commands
would not reflect the full extent of the
conference. For example, the com-
mand to display the list of those who
have joined the conference would
only display those members who
reside on that particular system.
The most important aspect of a
cross-system conference is making
available to all the members of the
conference the entries of all other
members. This is relatively easy. As
part of Inbox processing, when
CLACR receives entries in any con-
ference, the Conference Data table is
scanned to determine if you are the
organizer of that conference. If not,
the entry is handled as any normal
received entry. But if you are the con-
ference organizer, then (with your per-
mission) pointers are added to your
Outbox indicating that this entry is to
be sent to each of the other systems
where this conference resides. If a
target system is a traditional electronic
mail system, a mailing list is created
using the list of joiners from the Con-
ference Data table.
You can control what does and does
[continued)
"It's easy to spot the difference between our
IBM PC-based frame grabber and the others'.'
High performance and affordable cost, just $1495 for
a single plug-in board.
Unlike other video I/O sys-
tems, the new DT2803 provides
real-time image capture capabil-
ities, digitizing a 6-bit video field
every 1/30 second. An on-board,
memory-mapped, dual-ported
frame store memory (256 x
256 x 8) makes it ideal for
the IBM PC's 64K buffer size.
And for real number crunching,
SPECIFICATIONS: DT2803
A/D Input RS-170 (CCIRR). 6-bitsat5MHz
Frame Grab 1/30 (1/25) second per field
LUTs 8.64 x 8 input: 4,256 x 12 output
D/A Output 64 colors x 64 intensities. R-G-B; 64 grey levels, monochrome
Frame Memory 256 x 256 x 8 (2-bits for graphic overlays)
the DT2803's external
ports interface to high speed
co-processors.
With our software
package, VIDEOLAB,™ the
DT2803 is easy to use for
image operations like aver-
ages, histograms, and convo-
lutions.
So, if your application is
manufacturing/automatic inspec-
tion, robotics, or medical research,
our new high per-
formance video I/O
board will really open your eyes -at
an unbeatable price.
Call (617) 481-3700
Call for our new
576 pg. catalog/
handbook or see it
in Gold Book 1985.
DATA TRANSLATION
World Headquarters: Data Translation, Inc., 100 Locke Dr., Marlboro, MA 01752 (617) 481-3700 Tlx 951 646.
European Headquarters: Data Translation, Ltd., 13 The Business Centre, Molly Millars Lane, Wokingham Berks, RG112QZ, England Tlx: 851849862 ( #D)
In Canada: (416) 625-1907. IBM PC is a registered trademark of IBM. VIDEOLAB is a registered trademark of Data Translation, Inc.
Inquiry 107
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 283
inquiry n tor tnd-users. inquiry a tor DLALtKS ONLY.
DECEMBER 1985 • B Y T E 285
CLACR
urgent. That way you can take note of
any changes in the remote system's
prompts or responses, any special an-
nouncements about downtime or ac-
cess numbers, or any failures in the
automatic message transmission and
retrieval and take corrective action if
necessary. While some of these ex-
ceptions can be eliminated by error-
correcting protocols like X.PC, excep-
tions such as system announcements
cannot.
Whenever a choice is available,
CLACR should be set up to use the
"brief" or "expert" modes of the
target systems, thereby minimizing the
number of characters transmitted and
received and. consequently, the cost
of connection.
Conclusion
Of course, the proposed CLACR soft-
ware would still require some human
intervention. But I believe it would
make cross-system conferencing
possible at a lower cost and with far
less effort than with any existing
microcomputer software package. At
the time of this writing, CLACR is no
more than a dream. But if other peo-
ple find the idea anywhere near as
exciting as I do, it may soon be a reali-
ty, opening the benefits of computer
conferencing to thousands and even
millions who previously found it too
complicated or too expensive. ■
FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OVER $100
HEWLETT-PACKARD
1 Series
$15.00 Rebate on HP-12C
HP-11C Scientific $ 55.95
HP-12C Financial » 47.95
HP-15C Scientific J 47.95
HP-16C Computer Science $ 67.95
Solutions Books
HP-11C Solutions $ 15.00
HP-12C Real Estate i 15.00
HP-12C Leasing $ 15.00
HP-12C Cash Flow Analyzer $ 32.95
HP-15C Advanced Functions $ 15.00
•Good thru 12/31/85
HP-41CV
HP-41CX
82059D
821 04A
821 20A
821 60A
82181A
92266A
NEW
41-15004
41-14005
41-14006
41-15055
40 Series
Scientific $ 169.95
Scientific $ 239.95
Accessories
Battery Recharger $ 16.00
Card Reader $ 150.15
Battery Pac t 28.00
HP-IL Interface t 96.25
Extend Memory $ 60.00
Extended Use Battery $ 39.95
Software
Math/Statistics Pac t 36.00
Financial Decision i 28.00
Surveying t 26.00
Circuit Analysis $ 36.00
Advantage Rom $ 39.95
HP-71B
HP-75D
82400A
62401A
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624S3A
82490A
921 98A
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AT&T
HEWLETT-PACKARD
HEWLETT-PACKARD
70 Series
Handheld Computer $ 369.95
Handheld Computer $ 658.75
Peripherals
Card Reader $ 127.05
HP-IL Interface $ 96.25
4K Memory Module $ 60.00
FORTH Assembler $ 115.50
Surveying $ 115.50
41/71 Translator Pac $ 96.25
IL 80 Column Interf i 250.25
Statistics Pac $ 96.25
HEWLETT-PACKARD
Additional Items
VECTRA AT Computer $ CAU
22258 Thmkjet Printer $ 379.00
7470A 2-Pen Plotter S 643.15
9114A 710K Disc Drive $ 625.00
82143A Thermal Printer $ 295.00
62161 A Cassette Drive I 423.00
82162A IL Printer $ 346.50
82164A IURS-232 Interface $ 227.15
82166C IL Interface Kit I 304.15
82168A Acoustic Coupler % 389.95
92192A Box of 10 Discs S 55.20
92265A Laser Jet Toner $ 79.20
IX-80
LX-90
FX-85
FX-165
JX-60
HS-60
AP-60
SQ2000
LQ1500
OX 10
DX-20
DX-35
PX-8
HX-20
EPSON
100cps & NLQ Dot Matrix* 219.00
100cps & NLQ Dot Matrix! 239.00
160cps Dot Matrix $ 339.00
160cps Dot Matrix $ 479.00
Color Dot Matrix S 469.00
InkJet $ 319.00
Apple comp. Dot Matrix. $ CALL
Office InkJet $ 1550.00
NLQ Dot Matrix I 650.00
Dalsywheel $ 229.00
Dalsywheel $ 315.00
35cps Dalsywheel * CALL
Geneva Computer $ 699.00
Lap Computer $ 399.00
4000 Modem 5 349.00
Softool! I 59.95
7600 FLOWER AVENUE
WASHINGTON, D.C 20912
(800) 544-4442
In Maryland, call
(301) 565-3595
PRINTERS
Diablo
D-25
D-60
25 cps Dalsywheel
80 cps Dalsywheel
Okidata
s
s
550.00
2195.00
ML162
ML192
Ok 120
ML193
120cps Dot Matrix
160cps Dot Matrix
Color Dot Matrix
160cps Wide Carriage.
Brother
1
$
1
•
219.00
159.00
199.00
499.00
M1509 180cps Wide Carriage.
HR-15XL 17cps Dalsywheel
HR-35 36cps Dalsywheel
20241 200cps & NLQ
CF100 Sheet Feeder
Twinwrttir $ Daisywheel/Dot Matrix . .
1
*
1
!
.1
379.00
345.00
669.00
825.00
199.00
815.00
Panasonic
KXP1091
i
249.00
Citizen
MSP-10
MSP-15
MSP-20
MSP-25
160cps Dot Matrix
160cps Wide Carriage.
200cps Dot Matrix
200cps Wide Carriage.
Star
i
I
s
,1
269.00
379.00
369.00
499.00
SG10/15 120cps Dot Matrix
SD10/15 160cps Dot Matrix
SR10/15 200cps Dot Matrix
S810 24 pin Head
PowerTypeDalsywheel
s
$
1
$
«
235/275
339/449
466/595
549.00
309.00
Juki
6100
6200
6300
1 8cps Daisywheel
30cps Daisywheel
40cps Dalsywheel
•
366.00
515.00
699.00
EPSON
Equity I
IBM compatible computer
Single Floppy Disk Drive S 799.00 I
Dual Floppy DUk Drive t CAU
Floppy/Hard DMc Drive t CAU
TERMS:
• Free Shipping on orders over $100.
• NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE for credit cards.
• MD residents add 5% sales tax.
• Credit references required for open account
•Allow 2 weeks for personal checks.
• C.O.D.'t— ca»h. money order, bank or
certified check.
286 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
OEM & OWN BRAND
COMPOSITE & TTL COMPATBLE
COLOR & MONO MONITOR
TERMINAL
SX SAMSUNG
Electron Devices
SEOUL OFFICE
LONDON OFFICE
SANTA CLARA OFFICE I TOKYO OFFICE
6~8TH FL.THEJOONG-ANG DAILY 6TH FLOOR, VICTORIA HOUSE 3003 BUNKER HILL LANE,
NEWS BLDG., 7 SOONHWA-DONG,
CHUNG-KU, SEOUL, KOREA
TEL: 7516-955/7, 7516-959/961
TLX: STARNEC K 22 596
CABLE: "STARNEC" SEOUL
Inquiry 322
SOUTHAMPTON ROW W.C.
1 LONDON, ENGLAND
TEL: (01) 831-6951/5
TLX: 264606 STARS LG
FAX: (01) 430-0096
SUITE 201 SANTA CLARA,
CAL. 95050, U.S.A.
TEL: (986)8473
TLX: 171685 SAMSUNG SNTA
KASUMIGASEKI BLDG., 2522
KASUMIGASEKI 3-2-5 CHIYOTA-KU,
TOKYO, JAPAN
TEL: (03) 581-5804, (03) 581-9521-4
TLX: 228009 SANSEl
DECEMBER I985 'BYTE 287
It's not surprising that the company
which invented Daisywheel printing
should be the one to take it to a break-
through level of performance.
. iu^ v^.™, £tc rv»ui~
for a busy office. That's way ahead of our competition. But
And because it's a Xerox printer, the 635 then so is our printer. And it's our way of
just won't quit showing our confidence in the technologi-
In fact, we are so convinced of the 635's cal advancement it represents.
^ naJioKilitv \u(*\\ q HH *)1 m onthc nf fripg-g^ri/iru? — Th*» AiS rtahlri Printer hac Hn7Pnc nf
N
\
BITE
Reviews
Reviewer s Notebook
by Glenn Hartwig 293
The AT&T PC 6300
by Bob Troiano 294
The Tandy 200 and
the NEC PC-8401A
by Harry Krause 306
Golden Common LISP
by Bruce D'Ambrosio 317
The Norton Utilities
by Rubin Rabinovitz 323
HyperDrive for the Macintosh
by Gregg Williams 329
Upgrades for the
TRS-80 Model 100
by Jerry Kepner 335
The IBM Proprinter
by Rich Malloy 343
Panasonic s 4-Color
Graphic Penwriter
by \on R. Edwards 351
Review Feedback 359
AT&T'S PC 6300. designed jointly by AT&T and Olivetti and manufactured by
Olivetti, is fast, expandable, compatible with IBM PC software, and less ex-
pensive than the IBM product. Bob Troiano has taken a look at this machine
and reports his findings in this month's first review.
Two laptop computers are compared by Harry Krause. Both the Tandy 200
and the NEC PC-8401 A are flip-top LCD-screen portables with generally closed
architectures. Each weighs between four and five pounds, uses a Z80-
equivalent microprocessor, and may be operated on battery power. NEC has
slightly modified its offering since this review was written. Chiefly, the Japanese
laptop now has a series of click-stops built into the cover/screen's hinges as
it folds back. This allows you to have more confidence in the screen staying
where it is positioned. The unit is not, however, different in any substantive
way from the one described in this review.
Golden Common LISP from Gold Hill Computers is an extended subset of
Common LISP. It supports more than 400 primitives and includes stack groups,
macros, closures, streams, and other advanced LISP features. In fact, this
language implementation gets high marks from reviewer Bruce D'Ambrosio
in just about every area.
Rubin Rabinovitz takes a look at Peter Norton's data-recovery tools, the Nor-
ton Utilities. Mr. Rabinovitz describes types of data destruction and tells how
the program gets your information back. Losing data is common enough, and
infuriating enough, that this review should have a helpful tip or two for almost
everyone.
Next. Gregg Williams, BYTE senior technical editor, takes a look at General
Computer Company's HyperDrive hard-disk upgrade for the 512K-byte Apple
Macintosh. Mr. Williams reports that, true to its promise, the HyperDrive is
fast, unobtrusive, and easy to use. Less heartening, however, is a series of
problems he encountered with the unit.
Back when the Radio Shack Model 100 was new, it was praised for being
the only true laptop portable computer but criticized for its lack of hardware
expandability. Since then, options have been introduced that let you increase
memory, add disk drives, increase the display size, and add interface expan-
sion boxes. In his review of "Upgrades for the TRS-80 Model 100," Terry Kepner
takes a look at several products now available for the pioneer laptop and pro-
vides his assessment of their usefulness.
BYTE's New York editor, Rich Malloy, delivers his analysis of IBM's Proprinter.
This unit lets you print fanfold and single-sheet paper, as well as envelopes,
without going through several time-consuming paper changes.
Ion Edwards, one of our staff's technical editors, takes a close look at
Panasonic's 4-Color Graphic Penwriter. At first glance, you'd think this was
one of the newer electronic typewriters. Then you notice that it uses pens
and is actually a writing typer. Portable, multifunctional, and shipped with built-
in graphics programs, the Penwriter has a number of characteristics that make
it worth considering.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 291
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THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN
SUPERPROJECT AND
OTHER PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
SOFTWARE IS EVEN
MORE GRAPHIC
THAN THIS.
It's not hard to see why
SuperProject" is becoming
the new standard in project
management software.
Bright colors, simple symbols,
and clear graphics let you know
exactly where you stand. Now,
and as far into the future as you
care to go.
But the real beauty of
SuperProject lies in what it can do
for you. Because no matter what
you do, how much time you have
to do it, how many people you're
responsible for, and how much
money is involved, SuperProject
will help keep you in control.
So you can plan for the schedule
changes. And react to the budget
hacks, and unexpected costs that
occur in real life.
And with SuperProject, you can
even directly transfer information
into SuperCalc" 3 Release 2, Lotus'
1-2-3", dBASE'" and other leading
software for more detailed finan
cial analysis and reports.
SuperProject. Another business
solution from Computer
Associates, one
of the most ex -
perienced^
business
software
companies
in the world.
With a list of
satisfied customers that includes
over 80% of the Fortune 500.
To see how SuperProject can
give vour work a clear advantage,
call Terry Smith at 1-800-645-3003.
Or see your dealer.
After one look, you'll wonder
how you ever managed without it.
Computer
/\ssociates
Computer Associates Micro Products Division was
lornierlv known as Sorruii'lUS Micro Software.
r. IMS Computer Asso< idles International, Inc.
SuperProject is a trademark and SuperCalc a registered
trademark of Computet Associates International. Inc.
Lotus and I 2 3 are registered trademarks of Lotus
Development Corporation dBASE is a trademark of
Ashlmi Tate.
SuperProject outdates other project calendars
by also providing calendars for every resource.
Track fixed, variable, and to j n quiry 337
REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK
Apple's enhancements for the He
and lie consist of a color moni-
tor, a 3 '/2-inch disk drive, a 300/1200-
bps modem, and a memory-expansion
card. The color monitor gave us no
surprises. It worked right out of the
box and provides a good-size focal
point after using the smaller lie mono-
chrome screen. The monochrome
unit, however, has a crisp, bright, high-
contrast display. The color monitor is
pale, with shades more like pastels
than bold primary colors.
I don't feel it can be used comfort-
ably with text. With the lack of sharp-
ness common to any color monitor
and the muted shades provided by
the Apple palette, I have some dif-
ficulty keeping my place as I work.
In spite of its shortcomings, the
color monitor at least worked. The
3!/2-inch disk drive didn't work at all.
After being plugged in, it simply dis-
appeared as far as the computer was
concerned. We found later that you
need either ProDOS version 2.0 (or
later) or the Apple He Add-On Kit en-
hancement to make the Unidisk visi-
ble to the computer. This information,
however, was contained in a manual
for "Apple Access II on the Unidisk,"
rather than in any information about
the disk drive itself.
The manual packed with the unit
was disappointingly uninformative.
However, you will observe that the
documentation provides the same
sketchy generalities in English, Ger-
man, Italian, Spanish, and French.
Getting precious little to go on in five
languages was not as helpful to me
as getting details in one language.
Apple's new modem is a half-size
300/1200-bps unit. There is a circular
seven-pin socket for the serial com-
munications cable on the modem
itself, but you can get a variety of in-
terface cables to connect this modem
with Apple computers other than a
lie. Interface cables must be pur-
chased separately. The technology
represented by the choice of trans-
mission rates and by the small size
has been around for a while, but hav-
ing it available for the Apple II line
(and from Apple) is worth noting.
The memory-expansion card report-
edly gives you an extra megabyte of
RAM in your lie. As with the modem,
what's interesting is the fact that the
product comes from Apple.
Seiko recently sent us a new ver-
sion of its wrist terminal, the
2001. It's a fun little memo device as
well as a pretty good timepiece. You
download short messages from an
Apple computer to your watch's
memory. Then, when the alarm goes
off, your watch tells you what you're
supposed to be doing instead of mak-
ing you puzzle out just why this little
machine is chirping at you. 1 thought
it was a little odd, however, that an ex-
pensive accessory like this would be
designed to work with a less-expen-
sive-type computer. I'm also curious
about who would get a lot of use out
of the terminal. It makes you run over
to your computer whenever you want
to load up on a new supply of memos.
I wonder how convenient that would
be after a couple of weeks or months.
Finally, a brief mention of the new
Texas Instruments 80286 ma-
chine. The Business Pro emphasizes
storage capacity in terms of both size
and variety. Ours came with a 33-
megabyte hard disk (but you can get
them up to 72 megabytes), a 60-
megabyte tape backup, a high-density
1.2-megabyte floppy-disk drive, and a
360K-byte double-density floppy-disk
drive. Something else it seems to em-
phasize, albeit subtly, is compatibili-
ty with IBM software. For example, it
comes with its own operating system
as well as a version of MS-DOS. This
laying down of the welcome mat to
an extended family of DOS applica-
tions is complemented by a less well-
known compatibility with PODOS 3.0.
Having more and more, instead of
less and less, can do wonders for your
whole attitude.
Using a variety of operating systems
on the same machine results in some
mental double-takes from time to
time. For example, Tl's operating sys-
tem calls the hard-disk drive E, while
MS- and PC-DOS call it drive C. If you
put something on the hard disk under
one type of operating system, you
won't be able to call it up under the
other. The files will still show up in the
directory— they'll just be out of reach
until you boot up again with the ap-
propriate operating system. I didn't
find it too confusing, especially since
the prompt is different for each mode
( \ > for TI mode as opposed to >
for the others), but I'm not sure
whether or not this could get to be
a headache in a busy office.
I like the Business Pro keyboard. It
has a nice solid feel, a definite tactile-
resistance threshold, and an audible
click. I also find the middle-finger-
bumps on the home row to be help-
ful. The display doesn't especially ap-
peal to me. It's a color model, and it
looks like TI chose gray as the default
color for text. In color programs
where characters are specifically de-
signed to show up in other colors, the
white lettering is quite brilliant. For
the normal run of word-processing
programs, however, you have the im-
pression of looking at a screen with
the brightness level turned way down.
The Business Pro is going to be
treated fully as a review subject. I'm
looking forward to reading the im-
pression it makes on somebody else.
—Glenn Hartwig
Technical Editor, Reviews
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 293
IBM PC
compatibility
with a speed
advantage
by Bob Troiano
SYSTEM REVIEW
The AT&T PC 6300
Bob Iroiano is an independent
consultant and also does work for
General instrument Corp., Hicksville.
Hew York. He can be contacted at
POB 97. Farmingdale. NY 1173 5.
The AT&T PC 6300 is an IBM PC-
compatible computer featuring a
fast 8-MHz 8086-2 processor, graph-
ics capability, and high-resolution color text
(see photo 1). The PC 6300, designed jointly
by AT&T and Olivetti and manufactured by
Olivetti, was introduced about a year ago
and is quite similar to Olivetti's model M24.
The computer is targeted at large corporate
users, professionals, and others who desire
a high-quality machine that runs two to
three times faster than the IBM PC.
The PC 6300 will run most popular pro-
grams, such as Lotus 1-2-3, WordStar,
dBASE III, Framework, and Flight Simulator,
and it performs admirably in most respects.
You can purchase a complete monochrome
system with 128K bytes of RAM (random-
access read/write memory), two floppy-disk
drives, and a nonglare green monitor for
less than $3000, while a 10-megabyte hard-
disk system costs about $4000. The PC
6300's price includes MS-DOS 2.11 and GW-
BAS1C Dealers are giving substantial dis-
counts on this machine. I suggest that you
check out a number of dealers' prices be-
fore making a purchase.
Hardware
The AT&T PC 6300 consists of three sepa-
rate units: the main system unit, a monitor,
and a detached keyboard. The system unit
is more compact than most other PC-com-
patibles, measuring 15 by 15'/2 by 6/2
inches. The keyboard, which is slightly
longer than the system unit, measures 1 7 !4
by 7/2 by 1.
On the rear of the system unit sits a large,
slow-speed fan that keeps the computer
cool 24 hours a day. The sound of this fan
is quite unobtrusive, even in a quiet room.
The trick here is that increasing the size of
the fan and reducing the speed still main-
tains the same cooling capability while
lowering the noise level.
The computer's circuitry is located in two
areas: a large motherboard mounted on the
bottom side of a dividing panel and a
smaller bus converter with seven expansion
slots mounted on the top side with the dual
floppy-disk drives and the power supply.
The main circuitry and DIP (dual in-line
package) switches are easily accessible on
the motherboard (see figure 1). You remove
two screws on the rear panel, then slip off
the bottom cover to expose the component
side of the board. The bottom cover has
vent holes punched on three sides to let air
pass over the motherboard's components.
Two screws on the rear panel attach the top
cover. When removed, it allows access to
the seven empty slots.
Most of the lCs (integrated circuits) are
not socketed, with the exception of half of
the RAM, all PROMs (programmable read-
only memories), and a few large ICs. The
motherboard has an empty socket for an
optional 8087 numeric coprocessor. This
computer requires the 8087-2, the 8-MHz
version of the chip that costs almost two
times more than the slower version. An-
other large empty socket is on this board,
possibly for a special PROM chip that ac-
tivates some networking or communica-
tions capabilities already built into the
machine. 1 had no way to confirm this,
however.
On the front panel you will find a green
power indicator, access to the two floppy-
disk drives (or one floppy and one hard
disk), and a reset switch.
The power indicator is nearly useless
because it is very faint, but the reset switch
is a godsend. When a program crashes and
the computer stops, you cannot always
revive it with Ctrl-Alt-Del. A reset switch is
handy because it lets you reboot the com-
puter without having to turn it off and on,
which is not particularly good for com-
puters. I Editor's note: AT&T says that the prob-
lem with the dim light-emitting diodes (LEDs) has
been resolved on later units]
KEYBOARD
The keyboard layout is similar to that of the
IBM PC (see photo 2), with undersize enter
294 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
and shift keys in the same locations. The
keys have a distinctive snap to them, similar
to the IBM PC's keyboard but not quite as
loud, and the touch is not as heavy. The
keys are responsive and not at all mushy.
The keyboard is moderately light, weigh-
ing about 4 pounds. It is made of impact-
type plastic and has two feet that enable
it to tilt upward slightly. It has two LEDs, one
on the Num Lock and one on the Caps Lock
keys. These LEDs reflect the actual status
of the machine, as opposed to just toggling
on and off when pressed. When the com-
puter is first turned on or reset, the LEDs
flash rapidly during the diagnostic checks.
A 5-foot coiled cord attached to the key-
board is connected to the rear of the com-
puter by a DB-type 9-pin connector. On the
rear of the keyboard is a connector for a
mouse that AT&T has just released.
This keyboard is not compatible with any
of the others available for the IBM PC, so
if you don't like the way it feels, you're stuck.
Maybe some third-party vendors will adapt
their keyboards to work with the PC 6300.
Video Display
The video display is one area where this
computer really shines. Two monitors are
available for the PC 6300: a green mono-
chrome (see photo 3) and an RGB (red-
green-blue) unit.
Built into the computer is the equivalent
of a monochrome card and a color-graphics
card. The same text font is used for both
(an 8- by 16-pixel matrix), whereas the PC
has a matrix of 8 by 8 pixels for the color
mode and 9 by 14 for a monochrome moni-
tor. All the graphics modes that are avail-
able on the IBM PC are available on the PC
6300, and 640- by 400-pixel monochrome
high-resolution graphics are available as
well. GW-BASIC has been modified to ac-
commodate commands for this special
graphics mode.
There is no obvious way at this time to
use a color and a monochrome monitor
simultaneously as you can with the IBM PC
and other compatibles. Some programs
that use graphics allow text on one screen
and graphics on the other simultaneously.
This would be a nice feature, especially in
scientific work.
The text font on the PC 6300 is a little dif-
ferent from the IBM PC font. It has 16 colors
available in the text mode. With the high
quality of the color text, you can easily use
this system for word processing without
strain on your eyes.
Both the monochrome and color moni-
tors have only two controls hidden either
on top or bottom: brightness and contrast.
The monitors plug into the back of the com-
puter and come on when you turn on the
computer. In fact, the monochrome moni-
icontinued)
Photo I: The AT&T PC 6300 with one floppy-disk drive, monochrome monitor,
and keyboard.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 295
REVIEW: AT&T PC 6300
tor doesn't even have a power cord;
it gets its DC power from the com-
puter's power supply.
One complaint 1 have about the
color monitor is a slight lack of lineari-
ty at the screen's upper left and lower
left corners; the text at these posi-
tions "pulls" toward the screen's
periphery I inspected several units to
see if it was a common problem. It
was. Most people would not notice it,
but considering that the monitor lists
for $945. I find it unacceptable. Good
engineering design should eliminate
this kind of distortion. AT&T has been
notified of the problem.
Processor and Memory
The PC 6300 is a true 16-bit machine
with 16 address lines and 16 data
lines. This means that the computer's
memory is accessed in words instead
-Wfi?
I I I I 1
Photo 2: The AT&T PC 6300 keyboard. Note that the keyboard layout is
similar to the IBM PC's except for the Num lock and Caps Lock keys, which
contain LEDs.
A:JUKK PftCE I LIME 5 COL Bl IKSOT 0«
<<< n«in nun >>>
--Coraor ItovaMiit-- -Delets- : -Macallaneour- -Other rtoms-
*S char left ~D char right ! ~£ char ' ~l lab A B fief dim '. (fron flain only
"ft word left "F wurd right 1DEL r.hr If: ~V IrEERT MfOFF l"J Help "K Blocl
*E line up *X line down !~I word rt! A L Find/Replce agaiit'."Q Quick ~P Prin
— Scrolling — ' *V line 1RETURM End paragraphia Onscreen
"7 line down "U line up 1 1 *H Insert a RETURN 1
*C screen up "R screen down! ! *U Stop a ccaaaand
[his is a s Maple screen display of the AT«T 6300 cowputer.
iz3«67tHs-
: f wertu.iopllasdfghjkl:''Nixcvlr«., /QUERIVIJIOM JflSJFOina..' \ZXCUBtl, /
mam ^jjjjgTij ajgjjj <nf57 ^ironx b^jjiflu tqsjj a^QjQS s U4ttlll MJ3DB
Photo 3: Text on the AT&T PC 6300 monochrome monitor.
of bytes (a word is 2 bytes or 16 bits).
The PC 6300 uses an 8086-2 micro-
processor with a clock speed of 8
MHz, nearly twice as fast as the IBM
PC. This setup could theoretically run
more than three times faster than the
IBM PC, but in practice it is some-
where between two and three times
faster and is program-dependent.
The bus-converter board contains
the seven-slot expansion bus. It multi-
plexes the 16-bit data lines down to
8 bits to maintain compatibility with
the existing IBM PC-type cards. The
bus converter runs at 4 MHz instead
of 4.77 MHz, so clock-speed-depen-
dent IBM-compatible cards might not
work. Most cards should run.
Two of the seven slots have an extra
connector available for boards that
can accept a 16-bit data bus. One
problem here is that the second con-
nector is not the same as in the IBM
PC AT or any other computer, and 1
suspect that few manufacturers will
market products that use this feature.
Some problems have been reported
with standard memory cards other
than the AT&T memory-expansion
board (which has true 16-bit access by
way of the second connector). Check
out any memory-expansion boards
before you make a purchase.
The motherboard of the dual
floppy-disk unit comes with 128K
bytes of RAM soldered in and has 18
additional sockets for RAM expan-
sion. The hard-disk unit comes with
2 56K bytes of RAM soldered into the
motherboard. All additional memory
requires expansion boards.
The preliminary technical manual
that I obtained from AT&T claimed
that 2 56K-byte RAM chips will work
in the bank of memory (the ones
soldered in) but gave no information
on whether the 2 56K-byte chips will
work in bank 1 (the socketed mem-
ory). A little experimentation with the
DIP-switch settings showed that 2 56K-
byte chips do work in bank 1, allow-
ing 640K bytes of RAM on the mother-
board. This was not mentioned in the
technical manual. In fact, you won't
find any switch settings in the manuals
that come with the computer. If you
(continued)
296 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
AT A GLANCE
Name
AT&T PC 6300
Company
AT&T Information Systems
National Sales Center
Suite 300
111 Westwood Place
Brentwood, TN 37027
(800) 247-1212
Size
15 by 15 1 /2 by 6V2 inches
Components
Processor: 8-MHz 8086
Memory: 128K bytes or 256K
bytes, expandable to 640K
bytes
Mass storage: Two 360K-byte
floppy-disk drives or one
floppy-disk drive and one
10-megabyte hard-disk drive
Display: Monochrome or
color
Keyboard: IBM PC-type
keyboard layout, not
plug-compatible
Expansion: Seven IBM PC-
compatible slots
I/O Interfaces: Serial, parallel,
mouse
Software
MS-DOS 2.11,
GW-BASIC
Options
Extended 16-bit memory
board (384K bytes) $595
Color display $945
Mouse $150
XENIX operating system $395
External 10-megabyte
hard disk price n.a.
Optional display adapter
less than $900
Documentation
User's guide, guide to MS-
DOS, guide to GW-BASIC
Price
With monochrome monitor,
128K bytes of RAM, two
floppy-disk drives, and key-
board $2745
With color monitor, 128K bytes
of RAM, two floppy-disk
drives, and keyboard $3395
With monochrome monitor,
256K bytes of RAM, and
10-megabyte hard disk $3975
■■ ■■■'■. , r-m i a
MHHTMTtt 1 SKk < 1
MEMORY SIZE <K BYTES) DISK STORAGE (K BYTES)
200 400 600 800 1000 400 800 1200 1600 2000
■■■1
m
MX wMWSrh MM :
11
BUNDLED SOFTWARE PACKAGES
2 4 6 8
PRICE (§ 1000)
10 2 4
8 10
■
■
V////'
4
J AT8T PC 6300 WMM IBM PC Y///A APPLE HE
The Memory Size graph shows the standard
and optional memory available for the three
computers under comparison. The Disk Stor-
age graph shows the capacity of the AT&T PC
6300 in comparison with each of the other
computers. The Bundled Software Packages
graph shows the number of software packages
included with each system. The Price graph
shows the list price of each system with two
high-capacity floppy-disk drives, a printer port
and a serial port, 256K bytes of memory (64K
bytes for 8-bit systems), and a monochrome
monitor. Price includes the standard operating
system and BASIC interpreter for each system.
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 297
Rear view of the AT&T PC 6300 showing connectors for the serial
port, parallel port, keyboard, and monitor. Note the oversize cool-
ing fan, protective shroud, and connector access slots for the seven
expansion boards.
DISK ACCESS IN BASIC
250
(SEC)
50
WRITE
SYSTEM UTILITIES (SEC)
40K FORMAT/ DISK COPY
40K FILE COPY
ATBT PC 6300
The graph for Disk Access in BASIC shows how long it takes to write
and to read a 64K-byte sequential text file to a blank floppy disk,
(For the program listings, see June 1984 BYTE, page 327, and Oc-
tober 1984, page 33.) In the BASIC Performance graph, the Sieve
results show how long it takes to run one iteration of the Sieve of
Eratosthenes prime-number benchmark. In the same graph, the
Calculations column shows how long it takes to do 10,000 multiplica-
tion and 10,000 division operations using single-precision numbers.
The inside of the AT&T PC 6300 showing disk drive, power supply,
and motherboard with expansion connectors.
BASIC PERFORMANCE (SEC)
2 50
CALCULATIONS
SPREADSHEET (SEC
The System Utilities graph shows how long it takes to format and
copy a disk (adjusted for 40K bytes of disk data) and to transfer a
40K-byte file using the system utilities. The Spreadsheet graph shows
how long it takes to load and recalculate a 25- by 25-cell spread-
sheet where each cell equals 1.001 times the cell to its left. The tests
for the AT&T PC 6300 used MS-DOS 2.11 and GW-BASIC. The tests
for the Apple lie were done with ProDOS. The IBM PC was tested
with PC-DOS 2,0 and BASICA.
298 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
REVIEW: AT&T PC 6300
want this information, you will have to
call AT&T or ask your dealer. The
switch settings 1 used for a 640K-byte
motherboard are shown in figure 1.
You can use only memory chips with
access times of 1 50 nanoseconds or
less for expansion.
The preliminary technical manual
mentions a Z8001 coprocessor board
for added throughput, but it is not
clear how it would operate or if it will
be available from AT&T.
Power Supply and Interfaces
The power supply in the PC 6300 is
rated at 1 68 watts (output power) and
has additional capability for momen-
tary surges during power-up when
you use a hard disk. In the system
with dual floppy-disk drives, all seven
slots are empty and available for ex-
pansion purposes. The floppy-disk
controller is built into the mother-
board, and the standard display con-
troller is connected to the edge of the
bus converter. The system includes as
standard an RS-232C serial port, a
Centronics parallel port, and a clock/
calender with battery backup. A con-
nector for a mouse is provided on the
rear of the keyboard. AT&T has recent-
ly released a mouse for this machine
and claims that it is Microsoft-com-
patible. I was unable to completely
verify this, but the Microsoft programs
that I tested worked perfectly.
The PC 6300 is ready to run as
shipped, with no hidden costs except
the extra memory that you might
want to add to the motherboard (if
you have the system with dual floppy-
disk drives) or a memory-expansion
board (if you have the hard-disk 2 56K-
byte system).
AT&T has specifically stated that this
is not a game machine and that it
does not support games. This is
because of the clock-speed differences
mentioned earlier. However, I installed
a game-port controller card and a joy-
stick and had no trouble using them
with Flight Simulator and a few other
games. The games seem to run a lit-
tle faster.
1 discovered a slight problem when
attempting to run the computer with
a serial printer. When the MODE
command is used to redirect the com-
puter's output to the serial port, the
computer fails to initialize the DTR
line and the printer doesn't respond
(AT&T has been notified of this prob-
lem).
I got around this by writing a short
assembly-language program that ini-
tializes the DTR line after MODE is
run. The IBM PC-DOS MODE com-
mand works perfectly on this ma-
chine.
Software
The PC 6300 comes with MS-DOS 2.11
and GW-BAS1C I recently received an
updated disk from AT&T containing
release 1.1 of MS-DOS 2.1 1 and an up-
date to GW-BASIC A BASICA driver
program that loads GW-BASIC is now
included and might help some pro-
grams that did not run before. Many
bugs have been corrected in both
DOS and BASIC. This disk should now
be available from AT&T.
Another important change is that
the hard-disk routines in DOS have
been modified to let more than one
hard disk be present in the system.
The FORMAT command can now for-
mat a hard disk larger than 16 mega-
bytes, with or without bad sectors.
This means that you could buy a 20-
megabyte high-speed hard-disk drive
and be running at almost the same
speed as the AT.
Two types of diagnostics are in-
cluded with the PC 6300: ROM-based
and disk-based. The ROM diagnostics
are performed upon power-up or
reset and take only 1 5 seconds with
640K bytes of memory. If you do a
warm boot, the memory test is ex-
cluded and the time is shortened to
5 seconds. The disk-based diagnostics
are extensive: they include mother-
board and video tests and a complex
set of memory tests. They also can log
errors to a printer.
Compatibility
Compatibility is probably the key
issue that people will want to consider
[continued]
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UNDERSIDE OF
SYSTEM UNIT
Figure 1: The bottom right corner of the AT&T PC 6300s motherboard,
showing the location of DIP switches and switch settings for 640K bytes of RAM.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 299
REVIEW: AT&T PC 6300
when deciding which computer to
buy. The AT&T PC 6300 was designed
to be software- and hardware-com-
patible with the IBM PC. Most of the
desirable programs that run on the
IBM PC will run on this computer.
AT&T has sent dealers a list of about
3 50 programs that will run on the PC
6300, although a few require patches.
The patches are available free of
charge from AT&T. Also on the list are
several programs that don't run.
Among the programs that have
been tested so far and do work are
20 word processors, 12 spreadsheet
programs, 1 5 database programs, and
some graphics and communications
programs. All Borland products seem
Tools for the Programmer
from Blaise Computing
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TOOLS & TOOLS 2
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For a limited time, pick up both packages and
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VIEW MANAGER With Source
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FOR C AND PASCAL PROGRAMMERS
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Extensive siring and screen handling, graphics interface
and easy creation of program interfaces. Includes all
source code.
TOOLS 2 SWO
Memory management, general program control and DOS
tile support. Interrupt service routine support. Includes all
source code.
VIEW MANAGER $275
General screen management. Create data entry screens
that can be easily manipulated from your application
program. Block mode data entry and retrieval with last
screen access.
VIEW LIBRARY Source $150
Soutce code to the VIEW MANAGER library functions.
ASYHCH MANAGER $175
Powerful asynchronous communications library provid-
ing interrupt driven support lor the COM ports. All source
code included.
Turbo POWER TOOLS $99.95
Extensive string support, extended screen and window
management, interrupt service routines, program control
and memory management, interrupt filters. All source
code included.
Turbo ASYNCH $99.95
interrupt driven asynchronous communication support
callable from Turbo Pascal, AS YNCH is written in assem-
PACKAGES FOR ALL PROGRAMMERS:
EXEC $95
Program chaining executive. Chain one program Irom
another even if the programs are in different languages.
Common data area can be specified. Source code
included if you're a registered C TOOLS and C TOOLS
2 user.
SPARKY $75
Run-lime resident (or stand-alone) scientific, luh
grammable, reverse polish notation calculator.
on stack size, variables or tape. Includes all standi
entific functions and different base arithmetic.
TO ORDER, call Blaise Computing Inc. at (415) 540-5441
+ 2034 Blake Street* Berkeley, CA 94704* (415) 540-5441
to work perfectly with the PC 6300.
The performance of Turbo Pascal 3.0
on this machine is breathtaking.
The Example 1 routine of a circuit-
design-and-analysis program called
PSPICE demonstrates the compatibili-
ty between the IBM PC AT and the PC
6300. This program from Microsim
Corporation is written in FORTRAN
and does mathematical calculations
that make extensive use of the
numeric coprocessor. Both computers
tested were equipped with 640K bytes
of RAM and numeric coprocessor
chips (the 8087 in the PC 6300 and
the 80287 in the PC AT). The test
results show a high degree of mathe-
matical processing compatibility.
The calculating time for the tran-
sient-analysis routine was 31.7 sec-
onds for the PC AT and 36.5 seconds
for the PC 6300. Calculating time for
the AC-analysis routine was 3 1.86 sec-
onds for the PC AT and 37 seconds
for the PC 6300. The difference in
speed for these tests is only about 1 5
percent, not bad considering that the
PC AT uses a 20-megabyte hard disk
and the PC 6300 has only two floppy-
disk drives.
The overall time including I/O (input/
output) was 137.3 seconds for the PC
AT and 2 1 3 seconds for the PC 6300.
These times reflect the effect of a hard
disk on the overall job time.
Compatibility is dynamic in nature,
and a program that doesn't run now
might run in the future because soft-
ware manufacturers want their pro-
grams to work on as many computers
as possible.
Release 1.0 of MS-DOS and GW-
BASIC and any other program using
the UCSD p-System will not work.
Also, programs that are dependent on
clock speed, like disk-drive analyzers
and certain copy programs, will not
run. However, I tried PC-DOS 2.1 and
3.0 and had no difficulty with either.
If you are considering purchasing
this computer, you should ask your
dealer or AT&T for a copy of the pro-
gram list.
Limitations
The PC 6300s limitations are few in
[continued)
300 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 36
SOLVE PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS
THE WAY YOU THINK.
PURE AND SYMBOL.
Introducing the new APL* PLUS® PC System, Release 5.0
The shortest distance between
two points is a straight line. But
unfortunately, that's not the case in
programming.
Most languages require you to go
through an enormous number of
steps before an idea becomes reality.
That's why the APL* PLUS PC
System is such a dramatic and
exciting software tool for serious
PC programmers and application
developers.
Instead of requiring you to
learn— and write— long-winded
and complicated programs, APL is
based on your instinctive ability to
deal in symbols. And once you begin
using APL's quick notations, you'll
find it the ideal programming
environment for all your application
needs.
The incredible shortcuts you get
with APL will let you spend less
time on drudgery and more time
creating. Intricate calculations and
modeling on PC's are a snap.
The Release 5.0 version features:
• multi-window, full-screen editing
• graphics primitives, now with
EGA support
• spreadsheet-like numeric
editing
• fast Assembler library
• built-in terminal mode
• and report formatting.
Plus concise notation for
programs like sorting, matrix
inversions, string searching,
and more. And the complete pack-
age price is just $595 with major
credit cards accepted.
Act now, and we'll send you a free
Convincer Kit. Contact your local
dealer, or call 800-592-0050 (in
Maryland, call 301-984-5123) to
order your system, or for more infor-
mation about our other APL * PLUS
products— from our UNIX™ version
to the new streamlined Pocket APL™
Or write STSC, Inc.,
Software Publishing Group,
2115 East Jefferson St.,
Rockville, MD 20852.
You'll see how symbol
PLUS • WARE products
are to use, the very first
time you use them.
Problem-solving at the speed of thought.
STSC
A Contel Company
Inquiry 340
APL* PLUS PC System requires 256K and DOS 2.0 or later. A soft character set can be used for computers with IBM compatible graphics board. A character generator
ROM or software is included for the IBM PC or selected compatibles.
PLUS * WARE and Pocket APL are trademarks of STSC. Inc. APL * PLUS is a registered trademark of STSC. Inc. UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE
301
REVIEW: AT&T PC 6300
About 350 IBM PC
programs will run, but
some require patches.
comparison to its many features, low
cost, and terrific color text. Aside
from those already mentioned, the
only problem I noticed is that, if you
remove the bottom cover, you must
be careful when you replace it
because a plastic button that acts as
an extension for the reset switch is
located on the motherboard. It is
somewhat fragile, and I damaged it
when putting the cover back on.
The 8086 processor is quite fast
when running programs that do a lot
of calculations and screen I/O. How-
ever, disk access is not improved
significantly by the faster CPU and
clock speed. If the program you are
going to use does a lot of disk access,
you should consider buying the
10-megabyte hard-disk version of this
machine.
Speed
I was curious to know how this 8086
machine fares against the 80286-
based IBM PC AT. There is no ques-
tion that the 80286 is a more power-
ful chip and that the throughput of the
AT with its fast-access hard-disk drive
would be better.
Disk Read and Disk Write BASIC
benchmarks and the Sieve of
Eratosthenes prime-number bench-
mark compare favorably with times
for the IBM PC AT. Disk Read in BASIC
takes 30 seconds for the PC 6300 ver-
sus 26 seconds for the PC AT. Disk
Write in BASIC takes 32 seconds for
the PC 6300 versus 24 seconds for
the PC AT. The Sieve of Eratosthenes
benchmark comes very close to the
PC AT time, taking 87 seconds for the
PC 6300 and 80 seconds for the IBM
PC AT.
These benchmarks demonstrate the
raw processing power of the PC 6300,
particularly when you consider that in
these tests the IBM PC AT is using a
hard disk. The 'At a Glance" graphs
show the results of the BYTE bench-
marks for the PC 6300, the IBM PC
and the Apple He.
Documentation
Three manuals are included with the
computer: a user's guide, a program-
mer's guide to GW-BASIC and a user's
guide for MS-DOS. All are in three-
ring binders with slip covers and are
fully typeset with illustrations. Each
has a table of contents and a good
index.
The user's guide has an introduction
to the computer's hardware and some
brief instructions on starting up the
first time. It also has a nice glossary
of computer terms. The disk diag-
nostic operating instructions are in-
cluded in this manual. I would have
liked a little more detail on what the
diagnostics were doing, but for most
users the information included will be
sufficient.
Both the GW-BASIC and the MS-
DOS manuals have a tutorial section
and a reference section. Each com-
mand has at least one example show-
ing how it is used. For some reason,
the instructions for DEBUG and LINK
usage were not mentioned in any of
the manuals. I later found out that
these programs are described in the
Table 1 : Part numbers and estimated
prices for optional PC 6300 manuals.
Manual
Part number
Estimated price
System programmer's manual
403319015
$65
(available now)
Technical reference manual
403319023
$65
(available soon)
Service manual
403319031
$125
(available soon)
system programmer's manual.
I obtained a final copy of the system
programmer's manual and a pre-
liminary copy of the technical refer-
ence manual. I was also assured by
AT&T personnel that a complete ser-
vice manual with advanced diag-
nostics was in preparation. The sys-
tem programmer's manual contains
information on DEBUG, LINK, mem-
ory maps, file allocation tables, system
calls, and drivers, and a complete
commented ROM BIOS printout.
The technical reference manual is
equally good. It describes each circuit
subsection in detail, gives a summary
of how the computer works overall,
and has all DIP-switch information
with the exception of how to set up
the 2 56K-byte RAM chips on the
motherboard. All that was missing
was a complete set of schematics.
The manuals are expected to sell for
under $65, except the service manual,
which will probably be about $12 5. It
was a wise move on AT&T's part to
make this information available to
users and programmers, especially
since the computer's enhanced graph-
ics and other special features can't be
fully used without this kind of infor-
mation. The part numbers for the
above manuals are shown in table 1.
Summary
The PC 6300 is a fine computer with
relatively minor problems. AT&T's
reputation for product support is a
guarantee that you won't end up with
an orphan. The PC 6300 runs most of
the best IBM PC software around and
runs it two to three times faster.
The color monitor and text screen
are considerably better than those of
the standard IBM PC and are compar-
able to a PC with an Enhanced Graph-
ics Adapter board. I would recom-
mend this machine to anyone con-
templating the purchase of a PC-com-
patible computer, including business
users, programmers, and scientists. ■
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1 would like to thank Tony Nuzzi of Falcon
Computers, Hicksville, New York, and lohn
Logowski of Computer Factory, Garden
City, New York, for their assistance in the
preparation of this article.
302 BYTE- DECEMBER
WW///////////
^
SehablaModula.
OnparleModula.
Modulagesprochen.
We speak Modula. Lilith speaks Moduta. Lilith is a
computer designed expressly for Modula by Niklaus
Wirth, author of Modula and Pascal. Wirth intended
Lilith to be the ideal programmer's workstation for
developing programs in Modula-2. He succeeded.
Modula Corporation proudly introduces a new
version of the Lilith — the Lilith/PC. The powerful
Lilith engine is now available as a co-processor to the
ubiquitous IBM PC/XT and compatibles.
In this set-up, the Lilith provides the computing
horsepower and the PC provides the input/output. The
disks, keyboard, mouse and other I/O are all handled
on the PC side. The Lilith runs the display and the laser
printer and does all the calculations. When the Lilith
wants a disk sector, for example, the PC passes the sec-
tor from the PC disk directly into Lilith memory by
maximum speed DMA transfer. The entire system is as
effective as the original Lilith and only half the cost.
And, of course, you still have the full usability of your PC.
All the wonderful software, developed by Wirth's
group at the ETH (Swiss Federal Instituteof Technology)
in Zurich, runs on this system, including Wirth's
spectacular WYSIWYG* multi-font word processor,
the Lidas Relational Database System, and the entire
Modula-2 development system. For engineering appli-
cations, there are schematic generation programs,
drawing packages, and our elaborate printed circuit
board layout package. Source files are available for
almost everything, as is customary with ETH software.
It's hard to imagine a better environment for a Modula
programmer!
When you see this system, you'll know why Jerry
Pournelle is so up on it. (See "Chaos Manor, "Byte,
Jul. &Dec, 1985.) Call us. We speak Modula. And we
are compatible.
• Lilith/PC Co-Processor, 2 Megabytes Memory,
PC Interface, Display Interface,
System Software $6551
Other products from Modula Corporation
• MacModula Compiler (for Apple Macintosh) . . . $150
• PC Modula-2(for IBM PC and Compatibles) . . . $150
• Wirth's Single-Pass. Native Code
Modula-2 Compiler for the PC $300
To order, or for more information, call toll-free:
* 1-800-LILITH-2
Charge cards accepted.
MODULA
CORPORATION
Inquiry 251
'Vial YouSeels ifbal You Gel
©198S Modula Corporation
950 N. University Ave.
Provo, UT 84604
(801)375-7400
C Low power
omplete hard disk kit $395
Comes complete with virtually the
identical controller that's in the
IBM @ XT, and Xerox® warranties the
hard disk for one year
G
uaranteed 100 percent IBM PC compatible
How can we offer this fantastic
price? Simple. We buy in such
volume that even the most ava-
ricious hard disk businessmen
understand they have to give us
the best price possible. We could
pocket the difference, but we
don't.
Instead, we put the extra
profit into our testing facilities.
That's whv Xerox guarantees our
$395 10 megabyte hard disk for
one year.
Xerox knows, as our cus-
tomers know, that we have an
extensive testing program. Here
is what we contribute toward giv-
ing you the maximum hard disk
performance.
Best Drives Available
First, we buy the best drives
available. Sounds trite, doesn't
it? I mean, a drive's a drive-
right? Hardly. You should see
some of the junk we get in our
labs. Some have such high fail-
ure rates that we even ques-
tioned our own $10,000 hard disk
tester. But when we tested other
manufacturers- drives we were
assured that our equipment was
fine, which just confirmed that
the bad hard disks were not only
bad — they were real bad.
But that's just the weeding out
process. We then take each drive
that we've put through our tester
and test it again with the control-
ler you've requested. We call this
a "tested pair."
DOS Doesn't Do It
In case you're thinking that all
this is an unnecessary duplica-
tion of what DOS does for you,
let me explain the disk facts of
life.
If DOS did what you may
think it is supposed to do when
you format the disk, DOS would
map around these bad areas.
Unfortunately, DOS doesn't do
this.
DOS 2.0 and 2.1 can't enter
the bad tracks. DOS 3.0 can, but
only on the IBM AT. Unfortu-
nately, as the press has so well
documentated, the AT's hard
disk develops bad tracks later
on.
We do what DOS can't
We believe the problem is so
bad, we use a software program
that performs a powerful test of
your disk drive on all of the IBM
or IBM compatible computers —
PCs, XTs, and ATs. Our format
takes hours to analyze the disk.
But when we finish, you know
that the bad tracks are really
mapped out so you won't write
good data that will disappear
into a black hole. We even send
you a printed statement of our
test results.
Our software allows you to
type in the bad track locations
from the list supplied by the
manufacturers, so you'll never
write good data to them — even
if DOS didn't identify them as
bad. The software even lets you
save the location of these bad
sections to a file, so that you can
reformat your disk without
spending hours retesting.
We even include a program
that will give you continuous
comments on the status of your
hard disk. No more waiting for
that catastrophic failure.
Average Access Time
As you might suspect, some hard
disks are faster than others in
their ability to move from one
track of data to another. The
time it takes the hard disk to
move one-half way between the
beginning of the disk to the end
is called the "average access
time."
The first generation of 10 meg-
abyte hard disks had average ac-
cess times of 80-85 milliseconds
(msec). But computer users love
speed, and guess what — the av-
erage access time for the new 20
megabyte hard disk in the IBM
AT is only 40 msec. (We sell an
AT equivalent with only 30 msec
access time!)
There are some legitimate rea-
sons for the shorter access time.
It's particularly helpful when
there are multiple users on the
same hard disk. It's also impor-
tant when running a compiler.
But remember, before you get
too wrapped up in the access
speed, there's always that ST 506
interface which won't let data
transfer from the hard disk to the
computer any faster than 5 me-
gabits/second. We've bypassed
that choke hole, too. If you want
the functional equivalent of a
Ferrari with a turbocharger, or-
der our 10 Mbit per second 100
megabyte hard disk with 18 mst
of average access speed.
Compatibility
To be sure that your hard disk
100 percent compatible with tl
IBM XT you don't need to bi
the same hard disk that's in tl
XT. You can't even be sure wh
brand hard disk it is becau
IBM, like Express Systems, goi
into the marketplace and bu
hard disks from several vendor
However, they buy their X
hard disk controller from on
one vendor — the same one v
do.
You can buy the IBM XT co
troller from IBM for $495 or yc
can buy from us, the function
equivalent, manufactured by tl
same company that makes it f>
IBM for only $195. Is it the e
actly identical IBM XT contrc
ler? No. it's better. First, it tak
less power, and secondly, it c;
control from 5 to 32 meg
bytes — the IBM controller c;
work with only 10 megabytes.
is 100 percent IBM XT compa
ble, and 100 percent is 100 pe
cent. If you want to save a sic
we carry a version that lets yc
operate two hard disks and tv
floppy disk drives.
More than 32 Megabyte!
You can operate with more th;
32 megabytes (the limit of DO
through the use of "device dri
ers." Express Systems can supp
you with device drivers for o
hard disks for over 32 megabyt
formatted. But, if you don't ha
individual files, or databases th
are large, you might want to co
sider one of our controllers th
can divide our 65 megabya
(formatted) hard disk into tv
equal volumes of 32 megabyt
each.
Reliability
We offer you a choice betwe
iron oxide and plated media
the stuff that covers the ha
disk and gives it its magne
properties. Iron oxide is, — we
it's rust. If you inadvertent
joust your disk, you may cau
the low flying head to dig o
some iron oxide. A little rt
flake can ruin your whole d;
Plated media is more resistant
damage, and if it happens. It
data is lost.
We offer both types of ha
disks. The iron oxide is old
IBM* Is a registered trademark of the International Business Machines Corporation. Express Systems, and Express Certified 555 are trademarks of Express Systems, Inc.
;chnology. and quite frankly,
lanufacturers understand it bet-
;r. Their better understanding,
ambined with some of the spe-
lal head locking mechanisms,
ives us peace of mind when we
;ll you one.
lard disks consume power. Our
nail, half-high hard disks con-
itne so little power that you can
se them with your existing IBM
C power supply. If you plan to
se lots of slots, you'll want to
icrease your power supply to be
ife. We offer the same amount
f power for your PC that comes
i the XT.
Our Customers
irae folks just never feel com-
irtable buying mail order. They
>rget that Sears began as a mail
der house or that IBM is now
to mail order. But, if it helps,
;re is a partial list of customers
ho have felt comfortable to buy
om us.
JM
Sears
merican Express
.S. Army
T&T (Bell Labs)
ausch & Lomb
Honeywell
MIT
RCA
Lockheed
erox
Sperry
Easv to Install
you're like most of us. raised
1 the boob tube rather than the
reat Books, you'd rather see
e movie than read the book,
ell, now you can choose to
ad our installation manual or
r only $9.95 more, you can get
VHS or Beta video cassette
owing the simple steps for in-
illation.
Warranty
e offer you a one year war-
nty on our hard disks- — the
me as IBM on the AT and 90
ys on the tape drives. (It's all
e manufacturer gives us.) If
Complete Hard Disk Kits
Formatted
Plated
Average
Transfer
PC or PC/XT
AT
MB
Height
Media
Access
Rate
10
'A
no
85 msec
5Mbits s
$ 395
$ N/A
10
'/:
yes
85 msec
5 Mbils/s
$ 495
$ N/A
21
</2
ves
85 msec
5 Mbits/s
$ 795
$ 595
21
Full
no
30 msec
5 Mbits/s
$ 1,535
$ 1.340
32
'/:
yes
85 msec
5 Mbits/s
$ 995
$ 795
32
Full
no
30 msec
5 Mbits/s
$ 1.775
$ 1,575
65
Full
no
30 msec
5 Mbits/s
$ 2,295
$ 2,070
100
Full
yes
18 msec
lOMbif, >•
$ 4,995
$ 4,995
Removable Hard Disk
10
'/:
no
90 msec
5 Mbits/s
$ 1,095
N/A
Tape Syst
ems and
Subsystems
Data
Transfer
PC or PC/XT
AT
Formatted Storage Capacity
Height
Rate (k sec)
60 Mbytes
'/:
88
$ 995
$ 995
60 Mbytes
Subsystem
88
$ 1,295
$ 1,295
21 Mbytes
(unforma
tted)Start/stop Subsystem 24
$ 595
$ 595
26 Mbytes
Floppy T
ipe® Subsystem
31
$ 749
$ 749
Controllers
All of our hard disk and tape controllers are available separately: Please call for prices
Subsystem Chassis
Any of our disk or tape units are available in an external subsystem for an additional
$250.00. You can mix & match any of our '/; high hard disks or tape drives together or
add any single full height hard disk:
Tape Cartridges
Express Certified 555 foot 310 Hci '/.-inch Data Cartridge $35.00
Power Supply
130 Watt Power supply $75.00*
150 Watt Power supply $125.00
'with the purchase of any drive
anything goes wrong with your
tape or disk drive or hard disk,
send it back in the box it came in.
However, we have found that we
can usually solve the problem
over the phone. So call first for a
return authorization number be-
cause we can't accept any returns
without it.
Comes complete
All Express Systems products
come complete with the appro-
priate software, tape and/or hard
disk controllers, and cables
where required. Hard disks are
formatted and tested with the PC
DOS of your choice. All drive
sizes are formatted capacities.
If your application requires a
stacking kit, power splitter ca-
bles, daisy chain cable, or some
other variation, we'll supply
these items at a nominal charge.
We even ship our hard disks with
Command Assist™ an on- line
DOS-like manual to give you
help with your DOS commands.
More questions?
Because we spend so much at-
tention on the front end with en-
suring that our disks will arrive
in working order, we have a cus-
tomer service department that,
unlike many of our competitors,
has little to do. When you need
us, you won't get a constant busy
signal.
Call our friendly, knowledga-
ble customer service staff to get
answers to your questions — be-
fore or after the sale. Our peo-
ple , who know the PC, can talk
you through the sticky parts, and
they'll respond to you quickly.
Just call us.
How to order
Pick up the telephone and call 1-
800-341-7549, to order. We ac-
cept Master Card. VISA, Amer-
ican Express and Diners Club.
Or send a cashier's check or
money order (We'll take a
check, but you'll have to wait for
it to clear) and tell us if you want
one of our recommended config-
urations or you want to mix and
match yourself. Corporations
with a DUNS number may send
purchase orders for quantities
over five.
Call Toll Free 1-800-341-7549 Ext. 1400
In Illinois call (312) 882-7733 Ext. 1400
Express Systems, Inc.. 1254 Remington, Schaumburg. IL 60195
Inquiry 138
IBM
Command Assist is a trademark of Micro Design International
SYSTEM REVIEW
The Tandy 200
and the NEC PC-8401A
Real
portability
by Harry Krause
The Tandy 200 (see photo 1) and the
NEC PC-8401A (see photo 2) are
both second-generation offerings,
substantially improved over their pre-
at a price decessors. the Tandy Model 100 and the
NEC 8201A. Neither, however, seems de-
signed to replace a full-featured desktop or
transportable microcomputer; despite their
refinements, these laptops present serious
users with significant shortcomings. And, in
relation to the low prices for which you can
now buy an Apple lie or even an IBM PC-
compatible 16-bit machine, these laptops—
at approximately $1000 each— are
expensive.
The Tandy 200 and the NEC 8401A are
about the same size (12 by 8/2 by 2'/2
inches) and weight (4 to 5 pounds), use a
Z80-equivalent central processing unit
(CPU), work off batteries or AC power, and
have a built-in 300-bps (bits per second)
modem. Both have a decent keyboard with
full-size keys. Both are "closed" systems;
you cannot easily open them to upgrade or
add hardware functions. Lots of extra-cost
(and pricey) exterior accessories are avail-
able for both. Aside from these similarities,
the machines move along quite different
paths.
The Tandy 200
The Tandy 200 has fewer potential software
capabilities than the NEC 8401A but is
easier and more fun to use. Software
burned into its read-only memory (ROM) in-
cludes a functional but limited word pro-
cessor called TEXT, an appointment calen-
dar (SCHEDL), an address database
(ADDRSS), a subset of the Microsoft Multi-
plan spreadsheet (PLAN), a communica-
tions program (TELCOM), a version of
Microsoft's BASIC programming language,
and a built-in four-function calculator. These
are displayed on a readable liquid-crystal
display (LCD) that is 40 characters wide and
16 lines deep (see photo 3). The LCD case
is hinged at the back and also serves as the
machine's cover. A thumbwheel on the right
Harry Krause (10214 Forest Lake
Dr.. Great Falls. VA 22066) is a
marketing consultant whose clients
suddenly got microcomputers
three years ago.
of the machine controls the contrast.
You access the word processor and other
applications through the machine's open-
ing menu, which lists the available pro-
grams. To select a program, you simply
move the cursor over the name of the pro-
gram and tap the Enter key.
There are 72 keys on the QWERTY key-
board (see photo 4), including cursor con-
trols and function keys, and I had no dif-
ficulties entering text or data. The key-
board's feel isn't much different than that
of most other microcomputers, and the
alphanumeric keys are in the usual places.
The function keys are along the top of the
keyboard, and the cursor controls are at the
upper right-hand side.
Once selected, the TEXT word-processing
program begins by asking you the name of
the file you want to edit (or create). The
Tandy 200 uses a six-character file-naming
convention and creates its own extension.
If you entered a letter named GEORGE,
upon retrieval it would appear on the open-
ing menu as GEORGE.DO, the .DO in-
dicating the file is a text file and not a
program.
As you enter text and reach the end of
the 40 columns available on the screen,
your words wrap to the next line. A printed
file can be 132 columns wide. Because of
the screen-width limitations, however, it is
impossible to visualize how paragraphs and
sentences will break in the final printed
document. Also, while the PRINT command
lets you control printout width, left margin,
lines per page, and top margin, there were
no direct references to printer control codes
that would allow people with dot-matrix
printers to select draft or correspondence
quality or different type fonts or sizes. Since
the Tandy 200 does include BASIC you
could write little routines to gain more com-
plete printer control, but this assumes that
you know or want to learn how to program.
The TEXT program allows you to cut and
paste copy, move to the next word, find
specific text, and move to the top or bot-
306 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
torn of a file. Word processing is viable on
the Tandy 200, but not if you have a high
level of expectation. The machine's pre-
decessor, the Tandy 100. was very popular
with itinerant journalists taking notes while
on assignment. The Tandy 200 should be
equally popular with them.
The SCHEDL, ADDRSS. and TELCOM
programs use files created with the word
processor and work similarly. In SCHEDL.
for example, you create a text file called
NOTE. DO. In the file, you'd enter informa-
tion in the following format:
7/14/85. Call Fred about overdue check
7/23/85, File property tax records
12/31/85. Quit work early
Search functions call up entries with the
same date or the same keywords.
The ADDRSS program uses a variation of
the NOTE. DO format, with names listed
first, followed by telephone numbers and
addresses:
Joe Tandy: 703/936-321
Alexandria, VA 22314
123 Main St.,
You can also access these address files
through the TELCOM program in conjunc-
tion with the Model 200's built-in 300-bps
modem (or an external 1200-bps modem).
TELCOM also lets you set communications
parameters and auto-dial phone numbers
directly from the keyboard. The program
makes good use of the function keys in in-
teractive mode to auto-dial numbers, dis-
play communications parameters, enter the
terminal mode, and return you to the main
menu. In terminal mode, you can hit func-
tion keys for printing out transmitted data,
sending special break signals, and saving
data into text files.
Other than the built-in BASIC, the remain-
ing software of interest is a variation of
Multiplan. This spreadsheet program holds
data in up to 63 columns and 99 rows (6237
cells), size enough for a substantial amount
of data. It would not be fair to measure this
implementation of Multiplan against the
versions that run on IBM PCs and com-
patibles. The subset includes more than
three dozen functions and more than a
{continued}
Photo 1: The Tandy 200.
Photo 2: The NEC PC-8401A.
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 307
REVIEW: TANDY & NEC
dozen commands from the Multiplan
repertoire. Tandy commissioned a
special instruction manual for its ver-
sion of the spreadsheet; it is easier to
read and follow than the manuals
usually packed with this kind of
software.
Tandy's ROM implementation of
Microsoft BASIC is quite impressive
and complete. People with IBM PC-
compatibles will recognize virtually all
the commands and syntax on the
Tandy 200 because they are a subset
of the ones they've been using. In fact,
to check compatibility, I entered the
well-known Sieve of Eratosthenes pro-
gram directly from a listing on my PC,
changing only a comma into a semi-
colon on the final line: PRINT J$;
TIMES.
Photo 3: The Tandy 200's LCD displays 16 lines of 40 characters each.
Photo 4: The Tandy 200's 72-key keyboard.
On the Tandy 200, the program
found 15 primes and ran in 190
seconds. The same program on an
IBM PC takes only about 30 seconds
less.
Storage capacity for BASIC pro-
grams and other files is somewhat
limited. The Tandy 200 comes stan-
dard with 24K bytes of RAM (random-
access read/write memory), 19.5K
bytes of which is accessible for pro-
grams or files. The machine can hold
up to 72 K bytes of RAM in "banks"
that are switchable by tapping on the
Fl or Tab key. Each bank is an island
with room for 47 filenames. Programs
will crash if they require more mem-
ory than is available on a single bank.
All the ROM-based programs except
SCHEDL are accessible from any of
the RAM banks. The 24K-byte RAM
banks are installed by the dealer and
list for $249.95, or slightly more than
$10 for each IK byte of RAM— a fair-
ly steep price.
If you have files that will not fit in
internal RAM, you'll need to consider
an exterior storage device, such as
Tandy's data cassette recorder
($59.95) or disk drive/CRT (cathode-
ray tube) display unit ($799). The lat-
ter includes a 5!4-inch floppy-disk
drive and an adapter that you can at-
tach to a television set or video
monitor. The Tandy disk drive/display
adapter unit seems overpriced, espe-
cially since its drive is only single-
sided and formats floppy disks
holding just 184K bytes.
Tandy says it will soon have a sub-
stantial library of software for the
Model 200 available on cassette tape
or in special ROM cartridges that plug
into the bottom of the machine. In its
instruction manual, the company
points out that most of the software
available for the Model 100 will not
work on the 200.
I should briefly mention some of the
machine's other features. There's a
built-in calendar/clock addressable
from BASIC an automatic power shut-
down, the four-function calculator that
can be used in the midst of other pro-
grams, some modest graphics avail-
able from BASIC (and presumably
from programs Tandy will release), an
308 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
REVIEW: TANDY & NEC
AC adapter, free introductory time on
a couple of well-known databases,
cables to connect the built-in modem
and the phone jack, a printer cable,
and a canvas carrying bag with
shoulder strap. Actually, the bag may
be an extra-cost accessory, but I have
seen it advertised as a giveaway with
the purchase of a Model 200. Tandy
also claims its dealers can adapt the
Model 200 to run on rechargeable
nicad batteries. 1 got 10 hours of
operation out of a fresh set of AA
alkalines; according to Tandy's
manual, I should have gotten 14.
The NEC PC-8401A
The NEC PC-8401A is substantially
more capable than the Tandy 200,
with a subset of the 8-bit CP/M 2.2
operating system built in. The NEC's
LCD (see photo 5) is 80 characters
wide by 16 lines deep, a standard that
perhaps exceeds the capabilities of
the video hardware. The display, plain
and simple, has so little contrast it is
next to impossible to read in almost
any kind of reflected light.
At first, I thought I had received a
defective evaluation unit, so I looked
over a few others at a dealer's. They
were just as bad. The display has a
contrast control and, like the Tandy
200, is hinged to serve as the
machine's cover. All 1 had to show for
my efforts was eyestrain. Readability
is not helped by characters that barely
fit in the allocated space; descenders
on one line crash into ascenders on
the next line. | Editor's note: As this review
was being edited. NEC announced a new
LCD screen for the 8401 A that is 9/2 inches
wide by 3 inches high, approximately 40 per-
cent larger than the earlier IVt-inch by
IVi-inch LCD. NEC claims the larger LCD
allows for bigger dot size, larger characters, and
a "substantial improvement in legibility'.'
Other features of the 8401A remain the
same]
Two alternate character sets are
available: Greek and graphics sym-
bols. The Greek characters are no
more readable than the alphanu-
merics.
The NEC keyboard has 68 keys (see
photo 6), including 4 cursor control
keys and 5 function keys that can per-
form more than one task. The keys are
full size and work smoothly but make
a loud click-clack sound when you're
typing rapidly.
NEC is generous with built-in mem-
ory, with 64 K bytes of RAM and 96K
bytes of ROM. If you need more RAM.
you can buy a 32K-byte cartridge for
$199. a sum that seems substantial
when you consider that 1 50-nanosec-
ond 64K-byte RAM chips are available
for $2 each. Still, NEC's memory
modules are cheaper than Tandy's.
The back of the machine is filled
with ports: a DC input (the AC adapter
is provided); a line jack and phone
jack for connecting the built-in
modem, an external modem, or a
phone; an RS-232C port for a serial
{continued)
Photo 5: The NEC PC-8401A features an 80-character by 16-line LCD that is
often difficult to read.
Photo 6: The NEC PC-8401A 68-% keyboard.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 309
AT A GLANCE
Memory:
Display:
Keyboard:
Modem:
Power:
Expansion:
Interfaces:
Software
Options
Documentation
Price
Name
Tandy 200
Type
Laptop computer
Manufacturer
Tandy Corp.
1500 One Tandy Center
Fort Worth, TX 76102
(817) 654-9369
Size
11% by 8'/4 by 2 inches
Components
Processor:
80C85, 8-bit, 2.4-MHz
24K-byte RAM standard, expandable to 74K
bytes; unspecified amount of ROM holding
software programs
40-character by 16-line LCD; black letters on
gray background
72 keys (8 function keys), QWERTY
Built-in, 300-bps
Battery or AC
Memory can be added internally by authorized
dealers; no slots
RS-232C, cassette, parallel printer (Centronics),
modem, bar-code reader, external bus
Proprietary operating system, Microsoft BASIC,
Multiplan, word processor, appointment
calendar, database, and telecommunications,
all in ROM
Disk drive with display adapter, $799; cassette
recorder, $59.95; 24K-byte RAM, installed,
$249.95
Owner's manual, Multiplan manual, TELCOM
manual. BASIC manual
$999
rrr
* ■ i i
tiii
fmm M m. y* i Um f m £ » m &» m y m* ^*w *~±*^ f ~*il
«-»££!
, ' . ' , T l
fill
tam\
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NEC PC-8401A
Laptop computer
NEC Home Electronics Inc.
1401 Estes Ave.
Elk Grove, IL 60007
(312) 228-5900
11% by 8 1 /2 by 2Va inches, 4.5 pounds
Z80-compatible mPD70008C, 3.9936-MHz
64K-byte RAM standard, expandable to 96K
bytes; 96K bytes of ROM holding software
programs
80-character by 16-line LCD; black letters on
gray background
68 keys (5 function keys), QWERTY
Built-in, 300-bps
Battery or AC
Memory can be added externally with a
plug-in cartridge
RS-232C, cassette, parallel printer (Centronics),
modem/phone/line jacks, external bus
CP/M 2.2 operating system, MicroPro
WordStar-To-Go, Calc-To-Go, Personal Filer
database, and telecommunications, all
in ROM
Display/disk-drive adapter, $249; 3 1 /2-inch disk
drive, $599; second drive, $299; 32K-byte
RAM cartridge, $199; 1200-bps modem
cartridge, $299
User's manual, quick guide, Calc-To-Go
manual, WordStar-To-Go manual, TELCOM and
Personal Filer manual
$999
310 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
The Memory Size graph shows
the standard and optional
memory available for the three
computers under comparison.
The Disk Storage graph shows
the highest capacity ot one and
two floppy-disk drives for each
system. The Bundled Software
Packages graph shows the
number of software packages in-
cluded with each system. The
Price graph shows the list price
of a system with two high-
capacity floppy-disk drives, a
monochrome monitor, a printer
port and a serial port, 64K bytes
of memory, and the standard
operating system and BASIC in-
terpreter for each system. Note
that the Tandy Model 100 has a
maximum of 32K bytes of RAM.
MEMORY SIZE (K BYTES)
20 40 60 80 100
DISK STORAGE (K BYTES)
400 800 1200 1600 2000
1
1
m
//
BUNDLED SOFTWARE PACKAGES
2 4 6 8
10
PRICE ($1000)
2 4
=T
z
D
TANDY 200
NEC 8401A
TANDY MODEL 100
The back of the Tandy 200
The back of the NEC PC-8401A.
The Tandy 200's internal circuitry.
The NEC PC-8401A's internal circuitry.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 311
REVIEW: TANDY & NEC
JiMMiI
Exoer
If you want to add
peripherals to the
8401 A, you will most
likely have to stick
with NEC offerings.
When you use your AT&T Card at a public phone,
you don't need a pocketful of coins. In fact,
the AT&T Card is cheaper than coins for out-of-state
AT&T Long Distance Service calls. You'll be
provided with itemized billing. And you can use your
AT&T Card anywhere. So on your next business
trip — get organized. With the AT&T Card.
Apply today. Dial 1 800 CALL ATT Ext. 4586
AT&T
The right choice.
printer or direct connection to an-
other computer; a parallel printer
port; and a data-recorder interface.
On the side, there's a system slot for
connecting a RAM cartridge, a CRT/
disk-drive adapter, or NEC's pro-
prietary 1200-bps modem.
Because the machine is a closed
system, users who want to add flex-
ibility with peripherals will most like-
ly have to stick with NEC offerings.
The list prices for many of these seem
unnecessarily high. The CRT display/
disk-drive adapter, for example, is
$249, and a 327K-byte 3'/2-inch disk
drive (in a box big enough to hold
two) is $599. The second disk drive
is $299.
A system configured this way seems
like less than the sum of its parts,
since you'd end up paying around
$2300 for the machine, the display/
disk-drive adapter, two drives, and an
inexpensive monitor to replace the
LCD. In today's market, $2300 will buy
a fully dressed IBM PC or Apple lie
or the new portable Kaypro 16— not
laptops, to be sure, but more capable
machines.
While operating on batteries, the
NEC is a power hog. When I first got
the machine, 1 popped in four fresh
C batteries of the "el cheapo" varie-
ty. They were eaten up in a little more
than two hours, or so said an indicator
light on the machine's control panel.
Next, 1 tried a set of name-brand
alkalines; they lasted about six hours.
The NEC also seems to drain batteries
when turned off. 1 left the machine
alone for a week with a new set of
nonalkaline batteries installed; when
I came back to it. 1 got the indicator
light after only 45 minutes of opera-
REVIEW: TANDY & NEC
tion. In its instruction manual, NEC
mentions using rechargeable nicad
batteries but states it makes neither
nicads nor chargers. I'd be leery about
installing nicads in a $1000 piece of
hardware without a specific recom-
mendation from the manufacturer
about approved vendors.
In a somewhat strange way to con-
serve battery power, NEC builds in
what it calls a "sleep" mode. You can
put the machine to sleep (without ac-
tually shutting it off) and then have it
wake itself up at a predetermined
time. Why you would want to do this
instead of just turning off the com-
puter escapes me, and none of the
bundled software mentions the sleep
capability. If it works with TELCOM.
the ROM telecommunications pro-
gram, I assume you could have the
unit automatically dial a data bank at
off-peak hours and download infor-
mation while you sleep. But there's no
documentation to support my theory;
I simply don't know how the sleep
mode could be addressed through
software. While the sleep mode uses
less battery power than the awake
mode, it still consumes more of the
machine's juice than the off mode.
Perhaps later software implementa-
tions will make use of this peculiarity.
f
Software
The ROM-based software includes
CP/M 2.2, WordStar-To-Go, Personal
Filer, TELCOM, and Calc-To-Go, a
spreadsheet. The MicroPro WordStar
is a subset of the full 8-bit CP/M ver-
sion; people who have grown up with
it on other machines will adapt quick-
ly. The CP/M implementation is inter-
esting, to say the least. You can con-
trol it almost totally through the open-
ing menu and the function keys. The
CP/M commands for TYPE, RE-
NAME, PIP, STAT, and ERASE are on
function keys 1 through 5, while ad-
ditional commands are available by
calling up an option macro and tap-
ping the same function keys. I could
find no CP/M assembler commands,
however, and some of the CP/M com-
mands varied from their disk-based
counterparts.
(continued)
When you use your AT&T Card at a public
phone, you don t have to hang up after each
call. Just hit this button after your
first conversation, and dial the number of your
next long distance call. The phone automatically
remembers your AT&T Card number. So you
have more time to take care of business.
AT&T
The right choice.
Inquiry 31 1
Instant-C:
The Fastest
Interpreter for C
Runs your programs 50
to 500 times faster than
any other C language
interpreter.
Any C interpreter can save you compile
Land link time when developing your
programs. But only Instant-C saves
your time by running your program at
compiled-code speed.
Fastest Development. A program
that runs in one second when compiled
with an optimizing compiler runs in
two or three seconds with Instant-C.
Other interpreters will run the same
program in two minutes. Or even ten
minutes. Don't trade slow compiling
and linking for slow testing and debug-
ging. Only Instant-C will let you edit,
test, and debug at the fastest possible
speeds.
Fastest Testing. Instant-C immedi-
ately executes any C expression, state-
ment, or function call, and display the
results. Learn C, or test your programs
faster than ever before.
Fastest Debugging. Instant-C gives
you the best source -level debugger for
C. Single-step by source statement, or
set any number of conditional break-
points throughout your program. Errors
always show the source statements
involved. Once you find the problem,
test the correction in seconds.
Fastest Programming. Instant-C
can directly generate executable files,
supports full K & R standard C, comes
with complete library source, and works
under PC-DOS, MS-DOS, or CP/M-86.
Instant-C gives you working well-
tested programs faster than any other
programming tool. Satisfaction guar-
anteed, or your money back in first
31 days. Instant-C is $495 ■
Rational
Systems, Inc.
P.O. Box 480
Natick, MA 01760
(617) 653-6194
REVIEW: TANDY & NEC
The CP/M possibilities can be ex-
panded with the optional disk drive.
When the 8401 A is used as a true lap-
top, without an external storage
device, the 64K bytes of RAM is ac-
tually divided in half, with 32K bytes
used to hold the ROM-based software
(copied from ROM into RAM) and the
other 32 K bytes available to store the
files created by the software. You can
store up to 31 files. With the optional
disk drive or with a plug-in external
RAM cartridge, NEC offers a "32K-
byte CP/M Mode," and files can be
stored externally. With the "64K-byte
CP/M Mode," the machine with a disk
drive (but not with the plug-in RAM
cartridge) can operate as a fairly stan-
dard CP/M desktop. Much disk-based
CP/M software, however, requires a
screen 80 columns wide by 2 5 lines
deep, so an optional monitor would
be necessary.
Notably missing from the NEC is
built-in programming capability; if you
want BASIC, you have to buy it sepa-
rately and load it from an optional
tape recorder or disk drive.
Calc-To-Go is another MicroPro
product and can hold a spreadsheet
64 columns wide and 2 56 rows deep,
or 16,384 cells. That's more than twice
as much capacity as the CALC pro-
gram on the Tandy machine. Since the
NEC's display shows a full 80 col-
umns, you can fit the full width of
Calc-To-Go on the LCD screen. Files
created with Calc-To-Go can be stored
in the data interchange format (D1F)
and transferred to a desktop micro-
computer using a spreadsheet that in-
corporates DIF files, such as VisiCalc.
NEC's ROM telecommunications
software, TELCOM, is a complete im-
plementation that takes full advantage
of the machine's built-in 300-bps
modem; it also lets you use an exter-
nal 1200-bps modem. The program
uses the machine's function keys to
change communications parameters,
to automatically dial numbers and log
on, to upload and download, to list
filenames on a disk, and to break a
connection quickly. The documenta-
tion on TELCOM is easy to under-
stand yet goes far enough to show
you exactly how the little NEC can
establish communications with a
Digital Equipment Corporation VAX
minicomputer. In addition, instruc-
tions are given for connections with
other computers, such as IBM PCs
and Apples.
Personal Filer, the database mana-
ger, allows records to hold 1 3 lines of
type. 80 characters across. The pro-
gram lets you sort files alphabetical-
ly on any named field, delete records,
edit records, search for character
strings, and scroll through files for-
ward and backward. If you have
telephone numbers in your database,
Personal Filer can dial them for you.
If you pay the price for a disk drive,
the world of CP/M 2.2 opens and you
have access to thousands of existing
programs. CP/M 2.2, however, is
somewhat of an obsolete 8-bit oper-
ating system. Few programs being
written these days are crafted with
CP/M 2.2 in mind.
Why a Laptop?
The most important question about
the NEC and the Tandy 200 has
nothing to do with software. What you
really have to ask yourself before fork-
ing over $1000 is, "Why do ! want a
laptop and what am 1 going to do with
it?"
lournalists and other traveling
writers can make good use of the
Tandy 200, and they probably
wouldn't need the extra accessories.
Tap in your notes, work on them in the
hotel room, and transmit the finished
story to the newsroom, all for about
$1000. There's nothing heavy to lug
around, either. Well-heeled students
could use the machine to take read-
able lecture notes. The built-in
scheduler and spreadsheet would
enable a frequent flyer to get some
real work done in what is usually dead
air time, assuming the airline on which
you are traveling lets you use portable
computers.
A buyer of the NEC machine can
enjoy the same advantages: however,
the screen display might not be suffi-
cient. The NEC is potentially much
more useful than the Tandy, but if you
can't read what you're entering, it
won't do you much good. ■
314 BYTE- DECEMBER
Tools That Make Your Job Easier
For PCDOS/MSDOS (2.0 and above/ 128K) • IBM PC/Compatibles, PCjr., Tandy 1000/1200/2000, & others
For CPM80 2.2/3.0 (Z80 required/64K) • 8" SSSD, Kaypro 2/4, Osborne I SD/DD, Apple II, & others
MIX EDITOR
Programmable, Full/Split
Screen Text Processor
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DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 315
Compare the
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Any one of these five features is enough reason to buy a Hercules Color Card. But
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Inquiry 166
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SOFTWARE REVIEW
An advanced
LISP
environment
for micro-
computers
by Bruce D'Ambrosio
Golden Common LISP
Bruce D'Ambrosio (555 Tulsa St..
San Lorenzo. CA 94580) is a
Ph.D. student at the University of
California at Berkeley. He is doing
research in efficient reasoning.
Golden Common LISP (GCLISP) is
an extended subset of Common
LISP that supports more than 400
primitives and includes stack groups,
macros, closures, streams, and other ad-
vanced LISP features such as GMACS, an
integrated, sophisticated EMACS-like editor.
GCLISP also comes with two books, LISP
by Patrick H. Winston and Berthold K. Horn
and the Common LISP Reference Manual by Guy
Steele, together with a fat binder contain-
ing the GCLISP documentation and disks.
Thoughtfulness and attention to detail are
immediately apparent in the packaging and
seem equally apparent in the product itself.
Two weeks, several hundred lines of LISP
code, and tens of GMACS hours after open-
ing the package, my initial impression has
been confirmed. The wizards at Gold Hill
Computers have not squeezed an entire
LISP-machine programming environment
into those five disks ("LISP machine" refers
to a $100,000 high-end system developed
at MIT in the late 1970s specifically to ex-
ecute LISP and programmed entirely in
LISP). However, they have packed an amaz-
ing amount of functionality and perfor-
mance into GCLISP, and, with a few caveats,
I can recommend it as a LISP system worth
serious consideration for several uses.
GCLISP seems intended for use as a train-
ing system for learning LISP. Two of the five
disks included in the GCLISP package are
devoted to an extensive LISP tutorial, and
I can think of no other reason for the inclu-
sion of the Winston and Horn book.
It might also be used as a system for
developing serious (as opposed to toy or
homework exercise) programs. These pro-
grams might be stand-alone or serve as the
user-interface portion of larger programs
running on larger machines. Finally, you
might use GCLISP as a delivery vehicle for
systems developed on larger LISP ma-
chines. The cost of an IBM PC is about one-
fortieth the cost of a LISP machine, so this
might offer an inexpensive way to distribute
artificial-intelligence (AI) systems.
I will comment separately on each of
three components of GCLISP: the language
and interpreter, the development environ-
ment including the GMACS editor, and the
LISP tutorial. While all three components
are interrelated and the dividing lines are
somewhat arbitrary, the distinctions are
useful for review purposes.
The GCLISP Interpreter
GCLISP is a variant of Common LISP (a stan-
dard LISP blessed by the Department of
Defense) and is a synthesis of many of the
best ideas from previous experimental and
research LISP systems (e.g.. MacLISP, Franz
LISP, Zetalisp, Scheme, and Nil). Unfor-
tunately, GCLISP is a variant, not a fully
faithful implementation.
The variances are of two types. First,
GCLISP is a subset. This is not unreason-
able since the complete language is large
and would never fit in the 640K-byte mem-
ory limitation of MS-DOS. Second, GCLISP
does not follow Common LISP'S rules for
variable scoping. These rules specify how
the interpreter is to determine the value for
a variable referenced within a function and
not declared as either a parameter or local
to the function. The Common LISP specifi-
cation calls for lexical scoping (it looks at
the program listing and uses the value as-
signed in the function that most immediate-
ly encloses the current one). But GCLISP is
dynamically scoped (it uses the most
recently assigned value for the variable). In
this, GCLISP follows the tradition for LISP
interpreters, which historically have imple-
mented dynamic scoping. Lexical scoping
has some theoretical advantages but is dif-
ficult to implement efficiently in an inter-
preter.
The choice of dynamic scoping for
GCLISP is a serious problem in that some
advanced LISP constructs cannot be writ-
ten in GCLISP so they will work correctly
in a true Common LISP system. This is
perhaps not crucial for many applications,
[continued)
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 317
REVIEW: GCLISP
AT A GLANCE
Name
Golden Common LISP
Type
LISP interpreter and development
environment
Manufacturer
Gold Hill Computers
163 Harvard St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 492-2071
Format
Five 5 1 /t-inch floppy disks
Computer
IBM PC, XT, AT, or compatibles; DEC
Rainbow; Wang Professional Computer
Features
LISP Interpreter, GMACS editor debugging
tools, and tutorial system
Documentation
100-page user's guide, 200-page reference
manual
LISP by Winston and Horn
Common LISP Reference Manual by Steele
Price
$495
since novices will never be aware of
the difference as long as they follow
a few simple conventions regarding
variable use. The combined effect of
these differences is that programs will
not be easily transportable between
GCLISP and more faithful Common
LISP implementations unless they are
originally implemented with the re-
strictions of GCLISP in mind. Also, the
impact of the scoping-rule differences
can be difficult for a novice to under-
stand, and this reduces the utility of
Golden Common LISP as a training
system for Common LISP.
Aside from these variations, the
GCLISP interpreter seems to faithfully
implement a thoughtfully chosen sub-
set of the Common LISP specification.
For example, I could enter and run
(with only minor modification) several
pages of Common LISP code I had
been developing on a Symbolics 3600
(a LISP-based personal computer
derived from the MIT LISP-machine
research).
GCLISP has a wide selection of
primitive functions, including arrays
(one-dimensional only, with no sup-
port for bit arrays), stack groups (a
primitive mechanism out of which you
can construct various forms of multi-
tasking systems), defstruct (the LISP
equivalent of Pascal records— GCLISP
doesn't support subfields of arbitrary
bit length), streams (the Common
LISP input/output facility), macros (a
facility that lets the skilled program-
mer extend the LISP language), read-
tables (LISP lets you redefine the
meaning of each character in the
basic character set), and a simple win-
dow system.
Those features that are part of the
Common LISP specification (stack
groups and windows are not) are im-
plemented in a "compatible subset"
of the standard. However, very few
aspects of Common LISP are imple-
mented in their entirety. Constant
cross-reference between the Common
LISP reference manual and the
GCLISP reference manual is neces-
sary to find out what features are
valid. Also, a number of features are
missing, including packages (despite
what the documentation says, pack-
ages are not currently supported),
bignums (arbitrary-precision integers,
much appreciated by the symbolic-
math folks), transcendental functions
(e.g., sine, cosine), rational numbers,
and hash tables.
In general, GCLISP retains the most
useful aspects of any feature and
omits those of more limited utility. But
the cuts are deep, and anyone hop-
ing for a full Common LISP implemen-
tation will be disappointed. Some
features are implemented separately
from the core interpreter and loaded
only on demand. This permits a large
number of language features, much
larger than could all fit into memory
at once. This is wonderful as long as
you don't need all those features in
any one program. And there's the rub.
GCLISP wants lots of memory— more
than MS-DOS on an IBM PC will sup-
port. The minimal interpreter requires
about 2 50K bytes, and, once I loaded
a few standard LISP features, my
512K-byte system had only 18,000
cons cells and about 80K bytes of
atom space left. This was enough to
load a typical program of several
thousand lines, as long as it didn't
create many large data structures. But
a major piece of the programming en-
vironment, the editor, hadn't been
loaded yet. On a 512K-byte system
you can load either the editor or a
large program, but not both.
Speed
GCLISP is not the fastest LISP I have
ever run, but its overall speed is quite
respectable. As shown in table I, it is
almost as fast as the Franz LISP (a
LISP system developed at the Univer-
sity of California at Berkeley) inter-
preter running on a VAX-1 1/750. On
a PC, muLISP is faster, but it's a highly
nonstandard LISP and cannot use as
much memory as GCLISP. XLISP is a
public-domain LISP interpreter written
in C by David Betz. The version I used
was extensively modified by a friend.
Frank Korzeniewski, and compiled
using Digital Research's C compiler
under the large-memory model.
One way to increase execution
speed in LISP is to use a compiler.
Typically, those functions that you
318 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
REVIEW: GCLISP
have already debugged are compiled
and loaded into the environment as
compiled functions, while those under
development are executed interpre-
tively. That way. you get the best of
both worlds: the speed of compiled
code for most of the overall system,
and the flexibility and debugging sup-
port of an interpreter for those por-
tions still under development.
Unfortunately. GCLISP does not
come with a compiler. Gold Hill Com-
puters has announced one. initially to
be available in mid-1984, but now
scheduled for release before the end
of 1985 together with a large-memory
(read 80286) version of GCLISP. The
compiler has been announced for
both versions of GCLISP but will ap-
parently be more convenient to use
in the large-memory system. Lexical
scoping is also supposed to be part
of the new improved GCLISP due at
that time. I suspect that memory
limitations will grow more restrictive
with this release.
The GCLISP Environment
The environment includes all those
aspects of a language system outside
the syntax and semantics of the lan-
guage itself. For GCLISP, this is the
LISP listener, use of the keyboard,
error handling, debugging facilities,
and the editor.
LISP, like BASIC, is interpreted. That
means that the interpreter is "listen-
ing" to the keyboard, waiting for you
to enter an executable statement. The
17 "keychords" (combinations of Ctrl
or Alt with another key or keys) pro-
vide a variety of support functions,
such as invoking the editor or tutorial
system, help, and debugging support.
One that suggests the power and con-
venience of a good LISP program-
ming environment is the Alt-L key-
chord, which prompts for a function
name and then displays its argument
list. (How often have you been writing
a line of code invoking some function
and been unable to remember the
correct argument sequence? This is
likely in LISP, since the standard style
uses many short functions.)
Another important part of a good
programming environment is error
detection and recovery. GCLISP is rea-
sonably competent at error detection
but provides minimal recovery capa-
bility. Like most of the larger LISP
systems after which it is patterned,
GCLISP will trap references to "un-
bound symbols" (variables that have
never been assigned a value), arith-
metic overflow and underflow errors,
type errors (such as attempting to add
a character string to a number), at-
tempts to exceed array bounds, and
other run-time errors. Once an error
has been detected and reported, the
system enters a "break level." Again,
this is a standard LISP technique— at
this point you can enter any execut-
able LISP statement just as you can
at the top level, but it is executed in
the context of the error (with all the
variable values in effect). This facility
is useful for displaying the values of
variables (for example, the parameters
of the routine executing at the time
the error was detected). The Ctrl-B
keychord displays the control stack,
but unfortunately you cannot move
around in the stack and examine
locals in different procedure invoca-
tions as you can in many LISP sys-
tems. GCLISP takes the somewhat
unusual but useful tack of displaying
the stack by showing the actual LISP
forms in evaluation. A sample display
is shown in figure 1.
Unfortunately, once you have
detected an error in GCLISP and
found out why things went wrong, it
is impossible to continue. In a few
LISP systems, when evaluation stops
(because, for example, the program
attempts to reference an unbound
symbol) you can assign a value on the
spot and continue evaluation. In
GCLISP. you can assign a value, but
the only break level from which you
can continue is a user-inserted call to
the break function. Once the inter-
preter detects an error, the only way
to restart execution is to abort (return
to the top level) and start over.
Error detection and recovery are
supplemented in a good LISP pro-
gramming environment by various
debugging support packages. In
GCLISP these include a trace facility,
step facility, and break function. The
trace facility lets you specify the
names of functions to be traced. Then
each time one of the named functions
is entered or exited, that fact is dis-
played on the screen along with
[continued)
Table 1 : Sample execution times for GCLISP compared with the times for a number of other LISP implementations.
Where two columns are presented, the first is for interpreted code and the second is for compiled code. All times are in
milliseconds for a single execution of the named function. Note that the speed measurements are rough and will vary among
individual systems.
GCLISP
muLISP
XLISP
Franz LISP
Zeta
isp
Operation
PC AT
IBM PC
IBM PC
IBM PC
VAX-11/750
Symbolics 3600
Iteration
06
1.8
2.1
35
1.0
0.4
0.4
0.004
List create
3
9.0
1.5
65
4.2
3.1
1.1
0.3
CADDDR
0.4
1.1
0.6
25
0.7
0.3
03
0.005
Structure create
4
9.1
3.5
—
6.9
4.2
12.0
0.55
Structure reference
06
1 7
0.5
—
1.9
0.9
2.4
0.008
Function call
02
04
0.1
—
07
0.4
04
0.006
Closure application
0.4
1.2
—
—
1.9
1.3
0.4
0.09
DECEMBER I985 'BYTE 319
REVIEW: GCLISP
parameter values (on entry) or re-
turned values (on exit). You can't "con-
ditionally" trace a function in GCLISP;
that is. you can't ask to see its execu-
tion traced only when some condition
is satisfied (e.g.. when it is executed
from within some other function).
The step facility is nicely im-
plemented. It lets you see each step
in the execution of any arbitrary LISP
expression. You have two basic op-
tions when stepping through a com-
putation. The down-arrow key
resumes evaluation and stops at the
next level of detail in the current ex-
pression. The right-arrow key com-
pletes evaluation of the current ex-
pression and stops before beginning
evaluation of the next expression at
the same level. Finally, you can insert
the break function at any arbitrary
point in a LISP expression. When ex-
ecuted, it interrupts the interpreter
and returns control to the console in
the same manner as a detected error.
GMACS Editor
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of
an integrated LISP environment is the
editor. GCLISP provides GMACS. an
EMACS-like editor that is fully inte-
grated into the LISP environment. It
supports multiple (two) windows (you
can cut and paste across windows)
and more buffers than 1 can use, is
reasonably quick (although it's not
hard to type ahead of it), and does
preemptive scrolling.
Most noticeably lacking from
GMACS are an undo command and
the ability to bind key sequences. If
those seem fairly primitive facilities to
you. it's likely that your favorite ad-
vanced EMACS feature is missing
also, but enough of EMACS is there
for most EMACS users to feel relative-
ly comfortable. Also. GCLISP comes
with all the sources for the editor (in
LISP, of course) and describes key
bindings in a file called EDCOM-
TAB.LSP that is fairly easy for a hacker
to customize to his or her heart's
content.
Most important, GMACS is an in-
tegral part of the LISP environment.
Besides little features like parentheses
balancing, expression indentation,
and cursor positioning and delete
functions that work for S-expressions
(the basic LISP syntactic form),
GMACS provides keychords to
evaluate function definitions, evaluate
* (setf b 3)
3
*(+ 1 (+ ab))
ERROR:
Unbound variable: A
1> ~B
(BACKTRACE)
(+ AB)
(+ 1 (+ AB))
NIL
1 > (setf a 4)
4
1 > (continue)
Can't CONTINUE from this error, use CLEAN-UP-ERROR.
Figure l: A sample error-detection and stack display taken from a GCLISP
screen dump. For purposes of clarity, user input appears in color.
S-expressions, display argument lists
and documentation, and macroex-
pand an expression.
All these features mean an incred-
ibly rapid debug cycle. Suppose, for
example, you are debugging and
discover that you need to add a func-
tion call to function y within function
x. All you do is enter the editor (via
a single keychord, Ctrl-E) and edit the
change into function x. Now suppose
that you forgot the calling sequence
for function y. lust depress the Ctrl-Z-
L keychord and enter the name of
function y. GMACS displays the argu-
ment list for function y on the screen.
Once you have finished editing the
definition of function x, press Ctrl-Z-
C and the definition is evaluated.
Finally, press Fl and you are back in
the LISP listener, ready to continue
debugging. Since the entire system is
memory-resident, most of this hap-
pens in less time than it took to read
this paragraph.
All this is wonderful, but unfor-
tunately the quality of the GMACS im-
plementation is not up to the stan-
dard set by the rest of GCLISP. In the
version I used (l.O), several annoying
bugs occurred in the cursor position-
ing and display-refresh logic, and the
system was slow enough to be occa-
sionally annoying. Also, it takes more
than two minutes to initially load the
editor from floppy disk.
The most annoying problem is that
once I loaded the editor, l had only
enough room left on my 5l2K-byte
system to edit one modest-size (about
20K-byte) file. And once the file was
loaded, I had no room left to load any
LISP programs for debugging. That
seriously crimps the utility of GCLISP
as a development system. However,
there are several alternatives. Ap-
parently, GCLISP can use memory
beyond the 640K bytes that MS-DOS
supports, although I haven't actually
tried this to see if it works. Some
microcomputers (the DEC Rainbow
and the Wang, for example) are con-
figured to directly support more than
640K bytes. GCLISP will use all avail-
able memory in these cases. Finally,
you can always reserve 60K to 100K
bytes of memory for a separate DOS
320 B YTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 233
REVIEW: GCLISP
partition and use a small stand-alone
editor rather than the built-in GMACS.
In this case, the interface is through
files and you lose the wonderful in-
tegrated editing facilities described
above, but you still have the GCLISP
interpreter and debugging facilities.
The Tutorial System
To help you learn the language,
GCLISP includes San Marco Explorer
and Inspector, some of the most ex-
tensive and well-executed tutorial
material 1 have seen. The Explorer is
an extensive programmed instruction
sequence, occupying two entire
double-sided disks. It is coordinated
with and covers most of the material
of Winston and Horn's LISP, widely
used in university LISP courses and
generally acknowledged as one of the
best introductory texts. The San
Marco Inspector provides dynamic
graphic displays of program execu-
tion, enabling simple demonstration
of program control flow.
In scope alone, the Explorer is quite
impressive. The list of topics covered
includes some 60 items, or "slide
trays," and each of these consists of
10 or more separate screens of
material. I cannot imagine a better,
more enjoyable, more painless, or
more comprehensive introduction to
LISP than this tutorial; it definitely sets
a new standard for software instruc-
tional material. If you complete this
program, you will learn at least as
much as you would in the average
one-semester college introductory
course on LISP.
USES FOR GCLISP
I can envision three separate uses for
GCLISP: training, software develop-
ment, and application delivery. As a
training system, GCLISP is unsur-
passed. The tutorial is extensive and
extremely well done, and the San
Marco Inspector is a wonderfully
graphic way to examine control flow.
The only flaw is the use of dynamic
rather than lexical scoping, and this
is an issue only when you use GCLISP
as a training device for other Com-
mon LISP systems.
Similarly, as an application-delivery
The tutorial material
is extensive
and well executed.
system, GCLISP offers a large subset
of Common LISP, a robust implemen-
tation, and reasonably fast execution.
The availability of streams and win-
dows and the ability to access color
graphics, combined with an assembly-
language interface, make GCLISP
suited for writing high-quality "intel-
ligent" user interfaces, either to other
software resident within GCLISP or to
software running on other machines.
Unfortunately, GCLISP is somewhat
less attractive as a development sys-
tem. The large amount of memory re-
quired by the editor and debugging
tools makes it useful only on a 640K-
byte or larger system, and the editor's
slowness and quirks are occasionally
annoying. Also, the lack of ability to
inspect the control stack and the lack
of error recovery (ability to continue
from an error) slow the debugging
process. Despite all this, if you have
enough memory on your computer,
this could be an attractive develop-
ment system.
Conclusion
Golden Common LISP attempts,
largely successfully, to provide a high-
quality Common LISP programming
environment on a microcomputer. It
is very similar in feel to the larger LISP
systems, and I found myself automat-
ically considering it a peer of those
systems.
If you are looking for a way to learn
LISP or know you want to work in
LISP and can't afford a LISP machine,
I highly recommend that you look into
this product. However, if you intend
to use this system for program devel-
opment, be prepared to load up your
machine with as much memory as
you can possibly afford, at least 640K
bytes. If you do have enough memory
(or, even better, an 80286 machine
with 1 or 2 megabytes). GCLISP can
provide a solid LISP environment. ■
Switches to make
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Reliable and affordable port expansion withoul memorizing
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ipherals with the push of a button. Is MFJ good? Joe Campbell
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MFJ Enterprises." Below are just some of those values.
When you
need to
switch be- "*i "*ffl thansfer switch
tween two
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... or you
need to have
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MFJ-1240/$79.95
The 1240 has a built in
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 321
Sequential power-up, surge protection,
power-interrupt sensing, and sequential power-down
for your microcomputer system in ONE product.
SEQUENTIAL PERIPHERAL
POWER-UP
Avoid harmful electrical
disturbances that can occur with the
simultaneous power-on of your entire
computer system from one outlet.
Simply plug your computer and
peripherals into the System Controller"
and eliminate this problem. The
System Controller safely and quickly
powers-up and down your system
sequentially to manufacturers'
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removing power to its four outlets at
1 .5 second intervals. Now your
computer and peripherals will receive
the precise amount of AC power that
they require.
EFFECTIVE SURGE
PROTECTION
The Surge Sentry® protected System
Controller also protects your system
against power surges, spikes and
other irregularities which cause data
scrambling, or worse, complete data
loss and equipment/component
damage.
POWER-INTERRUPT
SENSING
System Controller can sense
brownout and blackout situations.
When they occur, the System
Controller will shut off power to the
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DYNATECH—THE LEADER IN
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Like all Dynatech power products,
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322 BYTE
System Controller is a trademark of Dynatech Computer Power. Inc. Surge Sentry is a registered trademark of Dynatech Computer Power, Inc.
DECEMBER I985 Inquiry 394 for End-Users. Inquiry 395 for DEALERS ONLY.
SOFTWARE REVIEW
The Norton Utilities
recovering
data and
directories
TV-vz-Jc for 'BP^k e ' :er Nortons data-recovery tool
. <>_, v.- .. .... _ „• ■Jr really recovers lost data. I've used
ML it successfully dozens of times. Will
it save every lost file? No. Unfortunately,
there are some kinds of damage that the
; Norton Utilities can't repair. Can you tell
managing before buying the program whether it will
help you recover a particular file? The
answer to this question has to be in-
conclusive. There are different kinds of lost
data, and sometimes, even when you know
BY RUBIN RABINOVITZ how tne damage occurred, it is difficult to
predict whether it can be repaired.
The simplest kind of loss occurs when you
delete a file by using the ERASE or DEL
commands in DOS. Even though your direc-
tory indicates that the file no longer exists,
it hasn't really been erased. What's hap-
pened is that an instruction prohibiting DOS
from writing in certain areas of the disk has
been altered. Your data is retained until in-
formation is actually written into these sec-
tors. If you change your mind and decide
that you need the discarded data after all,
the Norton Utilities will reverse the changes
made by the ERASE command and your
old file will be restored.
Certain types of equipment failures can
produce more serious data losses. Every
DOS-formatted disk contains hidden files
called the boot record and the file alloca-
tion table; these, together with the directory,
are used for managing the data stored on
the rest of the disk. If garbled information
is entered into these files— a common cause
is a disk drive out of alignment— your data
may become inaccessible. But sometimes
the data files themselves may survive this
damage; if so, you may be able to recover
some or all of them.
Rubin Rabinovitz [Department of
English, Campus Box 226. Univer-
sity of Colorado, Boulder, CO
80309) is a professor of English.
He received his doctorate at Colum-
bia University and has reviewed
books for the New York Times
and New York magazine.
Retrieving Lost Data
If you plan to use the Norton file-recovery
procedure, you should be careful not to
write on a disk with a lost file. You'll risk hav-
ing new data entered in the sectors contain-
ing the file you hope to save. Once the old
information has been overwritten in this
way, it can't be recovered.
If you did write on the disk, there's still
a chance that the sectors holding the erased
file were not the ones that received the new
data; this depends on factors like how much
free space was on your disk and which ver-
sion of DOS you're using. So until you ac-
tually begin the recovery procedure, you
won't know for sure whether the lost file was
destroyed. Still, it's best not to take chances.
Make it a rule to never write on a disk con-
taining damaged files.
Another good idea is to make a copy of
your damaged file whenever possible. If
you're working with floppy disks, you
should use the DOS DISKCOPY command
(as opposed to the COPY * . * command);
DISKCOPY works by reproducing what's on
the source disk exactly, byte by byte, so
even deleted data is copied. Carrying out
the recovery procedure on a copied version
of the damaged file means that if you make
a mistake, you'll have a chance to recopy
the original and try again.
After taking these precautions, you can
begin the file-recovery procedures. In
general, for simple problems like uninten-
tionally invoking an ERASE command, you
can expect the Norton Utilities to retrieve
lost files consistently. When a problem is
caused by a current spike, static electricity,
or a disk drive out of alignment, it's harder
to predict how much of a file can be re-
covered; this is because so many different
varieties of error can occur.
With many types of errors, the Norton
Utilities can often help you salvage some-
thing. At times you may be able to recover
only portions of a file. This is similar to what
happens when the CHKDSK procedure in
DOS restores only some of the lost clusters
(groups of isolated sectors) in a file. In many
cases you can save enough of a file to be
able to reconstruct the missing portions
with little trouble. But for some files, such
as those created with spreadsheet pro-
grams, even a small amount of data loss can
[continued]
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 323
NSTRUMENTS LOGO IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF JDR MICRODEVICES JDR INSTRUMENTS IS A TRADEMARK OF JDR MICRODEVICES.
Inquiry 74
At Christmas I no more
desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's
new fangled mirth
But like of each thing
that in season grows
—King Lear
Mac Inker
A Gift For Christmas
A Gift For All Seasons
If Shakespeare had had a word
processor, he would have consumed
about 25 cartridges to run a first draft
of his works. At an average cost of
$10/cartridge, the cost is $250. With
MAC INKER he would use one
cartridge, his total would be 50 cents
in ink, and his print-out quality would
be much improved.
And now one UNIVERSAL
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UNIVERSAL SPOOL MAC INKER
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We still have our first generation,
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INKER to create and/or re-ink your
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(503) 297-2321 • Telex 4949559CF
REVIEW: NORTON UTILITIES
some simple formatting and printing
options and permits you to add line
numbers to documents automatically.
Another series of programs is de-
signed to help you learn about your
computer and use it more efficiently.
You can test a compatible machine
against an IBM Personal Computer,
find the addresses in RAM (random-
access read/write memory) where ap-
plication programs are loaded, dis-
play a map showing the locations of
the files on a disk, read the data in a
hidden file, change archive files into
read-only files or vice versa, reset
screen attributes such as colors and
reverse video, or make the computer
beep to signal that a command se-
quence has been executed.
Directory Management
Among other inducements to buy the
Norton Utilities, even if you don't
need it for recovering lost data, are
programs for managing directories.
One of these programs. Directory
Sort, is very useful. It lets you sort by
filename or by file extension, by file
size, or by the date or the time a file
was created. Directory Sort is a great
help for locating files quickly and for
organizing large directories.
File Find will be welcomed by hard-
disk users. It searches through direc-
tories and subdirectories for a
specified file. File Find permits you to
use the wild-card characters * and ?,
letting you search for a range of files
with similar names or extensions. List
Directories is another Norton pro-
gram for managing hard-disk direc-
tories. It displays all the directories
and subdirectories that are contained
on a disk.
File Size supplements the informa-
tion given in DOS directories. When
File Size displays dates, it lists the day
of the week along with the other in-
formation The display also gives you
the amount of space occupied by the
data in a file, the amount of space
taken up by a file on the disk (the
figure for the data plus whatever
room may be in partially filled sec-
tors), and the amount of space
needed to copy the file onto another
disk (this number is necessary when
the sizes of the clusters on two dif-
ferent disks aren't the same size).
Using the Program
Working with most of the smaller Nor-
ton programs is easy. The instructions
are clear and the command se-
quences are simple. Learning to use
the file-restoration program, however,
is somewhat more difficult. Unlike
earlier releases of the Norton Utilities,
the new version (3.0) has its menus ar-
ranged in a tree array. To use a func-
tion available in menu 2.3, you start
at the main menu, then go to menu
2. then go to menu 2.3. But the
manual has no list indicating where
each function is located; instead,
you're advised to experiment with the
program and assured that you'll
quickly catch on.
Well, maybe. Although I was familiar
with an earlier release of the Utilities,
it still took some guesswork to get
from one part of the program to an-
other. First-time users of the
program— some of them still numb
from the shock of a FATAL ERROR
message— may not be in the mood for
experimenting. Without detailed in-
structions, they could add to the
damage they're trying to fix.
A valuable addition to the manual
would be a chart showing the con-
tents of all the file-repair menus and
the command keystrokes needed to
get from one menu to another. Also,
a more detailed set of troubleshoot-
ing procedures and a more compre-
hensive discussion of the causes of
data loss would be useful.
In general, I think the Norton Utili-
ties is an excellent set of programs.
It provides a good way to learn more
about how a computer works and
how information is stored on disks.
Among the many Norton programs,
there are a few that you'll probably
use regularly; the rest may initially
seem less valuable. But they're like
specialized tools: In some situations,
you'll find them indispensable. This is
certainly true of the Norton data-
recovery procedure. Using it once to
retrieve a valuable file can make it pay
for itself. Not many programs can
promise as much. ■
326 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Pick A Racehorse, A Workhorse,
Or Your Choice Of Saddles
VAR's & VAD's now have a
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Inquiry 32
Try Our Workhorse-
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♦lnfoworld Sept. 2, 1985, Page 1.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 327
Engineering
Excellence
v
IU^Ctat^ Oprfucr Act In
DATA/l0KlNiUK»ICAriOJKIg
Soptwace^ _
CROSSTALK IS A TRADEMARK OF
MICROSTUF. INC., ATLANTA, GEORGIA
CROSSTALK IS AVAILABLE FOR
MOST SMALL BUSINESS
COMPUTERS
A class act
with caveats
by Gregg Williams
HARDWARE REVIEW
HyperDrive
for the Macintosh
G
Gregg Williams is a senior technical
editor at BYTE. He can be
contacted at POB 372. Hancock.
NH 03449
eneral Computer Company's
■ HyperDrive isn't much to look at.
In fact, the only difference be-
tween a HyperDrive-equipped Mac and a
normal one is a sticker just below the screen
(see photo 1). But that's one of the Hyper-
Drive's best features: There isn't anything to
look at. It looks like a normal Macintosh, but
inside is a 10-megabyte (or, in the case of
HyperDrive 20, a 20-megabyte) hard disk.
A HyperDrive-equipped Mac fits in the
same carrying case and still has two free
serial ports (many add-on Mac hard disks
use one of the two serial ports). As an
added bonus, a HyperDrive-equipped Mac
uses itself as the start-up disk, eliminating
the usual practice of having to start up with
a special floppy disk.
The HyperDrive is fast, unobtrusive, and
easy to use. Unfortunately, I had some prob-
lems that might affect your view of it.
Inside the HyperDrive
The HyperDrive is an add-on hard-disk drive
installed inside your 512K-byte Macintosh
by one of General Computer Company's
authorized dealers. Formerly, the company
offered its own 512K-byte upgrade: it no
longer does. The disk is housed in a shock-
mounted case: the dealer also installs one
circuit board, an auxiliary power supply, and
a small fan (see photo 2). This adds just
under 5 pounds to the Mac's weight (just
over 5 pounds for the HyperDrive 20).
The HyperDrive with installation costs
$1695 ($2195 for the HyperDrive 20). GCC
provides a 90-day warranty, and the Hyper-
Drive can be serviced by the dealer who in-
stalled it or by any authorized Apple dealer
(last lune, Apple announced that adding a
HyperDrive does not void your Mac warran-
ty). You can also purchase a one-year main-
tenance contract covering the HyperDrive
for $195 ($2 50 for the HyperDrive 20).
I found the HyperDrive and the Hyper-
Drive 20 to be identical except for the
amount of storage they deliver. From here
on, anything I say about the HyperDrive will
refer to both models unless I explicitly in-
dicate the HyperDrive 20.
Running the HyperDrive
A HyperDrive-equipped Mac uses modified
software that partitions the hard disk into
as many drawers as you want. A drawer is
essentially the same as a disk drive: it has
its own desktop icon that opens, like a nor-
mal Macintosh disk-drive icon, to a window
containing its contents. Unlike a normal
disk, a drawer can take up to 16 megabytes
of disk storage; the only other limitation is
in the number of files it can store in one
drawer. (The Macintosh, like many other
computers, was not designed with hard
disks in mind. Vendors of add-on hard disks
modify the existing operating system so the
hard disk looks like multiple floppy disks.
The Macintosh floppy disk contains space
for only 128 files, a maximum large enough
for the standard 400K-byte 3 '/2-inch floppy
disk but not for a larger mass-storage
device.)
A HyperDrive drawer can be larger than
400K bytes but still has a natural limitation
in the number of files it can hold. GCC has
altered the Finder so a drawer can contain
up to 128 (normal), 2 56, or 512 files. A
drawer allocates storage from the hard disk
in units of 2 56K bytes— a drawer with just
one file in it takes 2 56K bytes, and a set of
files totaling 2 57K bytes takes 512K bytes.
Because of the way the HyperDrive
allocates disk space, drawers have an in-
teresting quirk: The available memory mes-
sages in the upper left corner of various
drawer windows might be different (they
should be the same, since they reflect the
amount of memory available on the entire
hard disk).
The Manager
lust as a normal Macintosh runs faster if
you're not using the external drive, the
HyperDrive-equipped Mac runs faster if you
have fewer drawers on the desktop. You can
{continued)
. Inquiry 246
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 329
REVIEW: HYPERDRIVE
AT A GLANCE
Name
HyperDrive (or HyperDnve 20)
Type
An internal 10-megabyte (or 20-megabyte)
hard disk for the Macintosh computer
Manufacturer
General Computer Co.
215 First St.
Cambridge, MA 02142
(617) 492-5500
Software
Modified System file plus Manager,
Hyperlnstall, Backup, and print-spooling
programs
Price
$1695 ($2195 for HyperDnve 20), optional
HyperCare maintenance contract is $195
($250 for HyperDnve 20)
use the Manager program (included
with HyperDrive) to open or close
drawers. Closed drawers are invisible
to the Macintosh: they do not appear
on the desktop, nor do they slow
start-up and launch times (launch time
is the amount of time needed to start
a selected program). The Manager
gives you a "Drawers" menu that lists
all existing drawers. You can check
(open) and uncheck (close) a drawer
by selecting its name.
With the Manager program, you can
also initialize, format, or non-
destructive^ test the hard disk, create
and delete drawers, change a drawer's
password, and do garbage collection
(reclaim fragmented areas of storage
too small to use). The Preferences
screen lets you modify the Hyper-
Drive's behavior in several ways (see
photo 3).
The Drawers Accessory
To the Macintosh, the Manager is just
another program, and entering and
leaving it take time. As a partial, faster
substitute. GCC has added a new desk
accessory titled Drawers. When you
launch the Drawers accessory, the
Mac adds the Drawers menu to the
title bar and you can open new
drawers, even while you're inside an
executing program.
Occasionally, you can't close
drawers this way and must do it via
the Manager program. This happens
when the HyperDrive software sees
that a file is still open and might hap-
pen when you try to open or close a
drawer created with the 2 56- or
5 1 2-fiIe directory.
Backups
GCC includes a Backup program that
lets you copy files or some or all of
the drawers, either to another part of
the HyperDrive or to multiple floppy
disks. Once you have done that, you
can later do an incremental backup
on one or more drawers— this is faster
because it updates only the data that
has changed since the last backup.
However, each incremental backup
takes at least one disk, even if you
have changed only a few files. This is
Photo 1: A Macintosh computer with a GCC HyperDrive 20 20-megabyte
hard disk in it.
330 BYTE • DECEMBER 198=.
REVIEW: HYPERDRIVE
wasteful, and you will eventually want
to do a complete backup (which will
use disks more efficiently).
Print Spooler
The print-spooling utility supplied
with the HyperDrive is an innovative
and useful program that uses the free
space on the hard disk (i.e., disk-
storage capacity not used by any
open or closed drawer) to spool any
output that goes to the printer. All
other Mac print spoolers to date print
only text files. (Ordinary text spoolers
use a small amount of the Mac's
memory to store the file in ASCII for-
mat and then print it in draft mode.
The Mac cannot spare enough mem-
ory to save the high-resolution graph-
ics image that it sends to the printer
when a document is printed in
standard- or high-quality modes, but
a HyperDrive-equipped Mac with
several unused megabytes of storage
can.)
You can install the print-spooling
capability by moving the Spooler In-
stall program onto the Startup drawer
and launching it; the print-spooling
capability is available automatically
when you restart the computer until
you remove it by running the Spooler
Install program again. The feature
works well; for example, I started
printing a 14-page MacWrite docu-
ment and found that my Mac was free
for other tasks after the printer had
produced four pages. (The spooler
does not spool everything to disk,
only what the printer can't handle; for
the first four pages, the Mac was con-
tinuously printing the document and
saving the rest of it to disk. This is
slower than a scheme that would
dump everything to disk, but it saves
a lot of time.) The spooler continues
to print your document, pausing only
during times of heavy disk access,
even if you leave one application and
go to another; however, it does not
survive a complete reset or power-
down/power-up of the Mac.
Performance
The more files that are on the desk-
top, the longer the Mac takes to start
{continued)
Photo 2: An interior shot of a HyperDrive-equipped Mac. The hard disk is the
vertically mounted box. The circuit hoard in front of the hard disk is not part of
the HyperDrive: it is an enhancement that gives the Mac an external video
output jack.
Photo 3: The Preferences screen. This screen allows you to change the way the
HyperDrive works.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 331
REVIEW: HYPERDRIVE
up or exit from an application (which
essentially restarts the system). Sur-
prisingly, the launch time also varies
with the amount of data on the desk-
top. This is Macintosh Finder 4.1
behavior, not HyperDrive behavior.
However, the problem is magnified
with a HyperDrive because you can
have many more files on the desktop
at a time.
Table 1 shows the timing results of
three operations (initial start-up of
disk and launch and exit times for the
Manager program) under varying con-
ditions. (The launch and exit times for
the Manager are representative of ap-
plications in general; 1 found the
respective times for MacPaint, for ex-
ample, to be within a second of those
for Manager.) The table shows that the
more files visible on the desktop, the
longer the HyperDrive-equipped Mac
takes to start the system and leave an
application (the time needed to launch
an application increases only slightly
with the load).
The table also shows that the over-
head of an empty drawer (which takes
up 4K bytes) is pretty low. and that
there is a slight advantage (never
more than two seconds) to putting all
your files in one drawer instead of
several. Note that the drawers in the
last example contain less data than
the example with four loaded
drawers; 1 could not triple the number
of files in the second drawer because
1 ran out of space in the drawer's
directory.
Because of the preceding results,
the best strategy is to place your files
so that you can work with the fewest
number of drawers and the smallest
amount of disk storage visible at one
time. In my use of the HyperDrive. I
put my more commonly used applica-
tions in one drawer and the less fre-
quently used ones in another, and I
closed any drawer not in use.
Problems
The add-on nature of the HyperDrive
causes occasional odd things to hap-
pen, none of them serious. GCC has
taken care of them in ways that cause
little inconvenience.
The drawer icons become normal
disk icons when you return from an
application that's on a floppy disk.
This is because that disk becomes the
start-up disk, and it lacks the drawer
icon and a few other things. This is
only an annoyance, but you can pre-
vent it by running a supplied Hyper-
Install program, which adds the miss-
ing elements to the disk.
If you create a drawer and turn the
Mac off without putting something in
it. you will get a "disk needs minor
repairs'' alert box the next time you
turn on your Mac. Nothing has gone
wrong— it's just that the Finder looks
for an invisible Desktop file on each
disk, which is normally created as
soon as you put one file on it. When
it doesn't see it. the Finder gives you
the "minor repairs'' box and creates
the Desktop file when you tell it to go
ahead with the repairs. This is a func-
tion of the Macintosh Finder program,
not the HyperDrive.
Caveats
1 used a 10-megabyte HyperDrive-
equipped Mac eight hours a day for
two months without a problem, in the
month that followed, however, I had
one crash that resulted in GCC replac-
ing the unit (GCC said it was a bad
disk-controller card), a major software-
related problem (somehow the Sys-
tem Folder software got corrupted),
and another crash that caused the
loss of two drawers. (I use "crash" to
denote a system failure that leaves the
computer unable to start up from the
internal hard disk.) Three times, the
fan in the second HyperDrive-
equipped Mac made a buzzing sound
that went away in about an hour. I will
not elaborate on these errors because
GCC maintains that it has improved
both its software and its method of
adding the HyperDrive to a 512K-byte
Macintosh.
I received a HyperDrive 20 in late
August and used it for about two
weeks. In that time, I had several prob-
lems of varying severity.
Some 3!/2-inch floppy disks that
usually worked crashed when trans-
Table
I: Event times
in seconds
on the HyperDrive-equipped Macintosh.
The events measured are time to start up [from
computer turned on to
appearance
of the desktop).
time to enter
the Manager program
and time to exit if and return to
the desktop. The top section shows the effect of adding empty drawers (4K bytes each)
to the desktop, which
is negligible.
The middle section shows the effect of adding data
to the extra drawers. The bottom section shows the speed advantage of
putting
approximately the same amount of data in
one drawer.
Drawers (K bytes in each)
Total
Launch
Exit
1
2
3
4
K bytes
Start-up
Manager
Manager
966
1142
2108
27.0
5.7
9.6
966
1142
4
2112
274
6 2
9.8
966
1142
4
4
2116
28.0
R7
9.9
966
1142
4
4
2116
28.0
e^
9.9
966
1142
1142
3250
33.7
7.6
16.3
966
1142
1142
1142
4392
42.3
7.5
24.3
970
1142
2112
277
7.3
9.6
970
2273
3243
31.4
7.4
14.3
970
3026
3996
33.8
7.3
16.7
332 BYTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 133
REVIEW: HYPERDRIVE
ferred to the HyperDrive. I eventual-
ly discovered that, in almost every
case, the solution was to remove the
System Folder from that disk so the
software would go to the System
Folder, as modified for the Hyper-
Drive, in the Startup drawer. Tom
Westberg of GCC said that his com-
pany now recommends that you put
all your applications in the Startup
drawer, which would prevent this
problem.
One time I was unable to open a
drawer, even from the Manager pro-
gram. Westberg said this stems from
a complicated algorithm that
manages the hard disk; paradoxical-
ly, the problem goes away as you use
more and more of the HyperDrive's
capacity. Westberg said that it rarely
happens, and the system software is
always able to open at least three
drawers before it happens.
Twice, on entering the Manager pro-
gram, I was given an alert box telling
me that "The HyperDrive has not
been formatted properly. The only
function you may execute at this point
is 'Format.'" (1 could also quit.) When
I quit the alert box and reentered the
Manager program, I did not get this
message again (formatting the Hyper-
Drive would have erased everything
on the disk). Westberg, who was
always very helpful, said he thinks that
the spurious alert box was a bug in
the software.
My last problem occurred as I was
writing this review: The HyperDrive
crashed whenever I tried to use the
internal or external floppy-disk drive.
The hardware was probably not at
fault; the drives booted and operated
correctly when I caused the Mac to
ignore the HyperDrive and use a flop-
py as the start-up disk. I did not have
time to correct this error and sent the
HyperDrive back to GCC.
Conclusions
1 like the HyperDrive very much, but
I can't deny the severity and number
of problems I had with it. I might still
buy one, but only if my dealer were
nearby and he or she reported no
problems with previous Hyper-
Drives. ■
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 333
HOW TO GET
OVER $2000 WORTH OF NEW
CAPABILITIES FOR YOUR
COMMODORE 64
OR $599
The Spartan™ is the Apple'" II + emulator for your Commodore 64'" that will open
up a whole new world of hardware and software for you! Imagine adding these
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hardware and software capabilities □ 64K RAM expansion □ four
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parallel port □ standard audio cassette deck capabilities for your C-64'".
The suggested retail value of comparable products offering only these
capabilities is over $2200.00* — but the Spartan'" gives you much, much
more! By building on your investment in your Commodore 64'" — an
excellent introductory computer — you create a whole new system
with both C-64'" and Apple'" II + capabilities. There is a whole other
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FOR INFORMATION WRITE:
MIMIC SYSTEMS
1 1 12 FORT ST.. FL. 6H
VICTORIA, B.C.
CANADA V8V 4V2
"All prices quoted ore in U.S funds, freight and taxes not included Value of components equivalent
tern are quoted (fom Apple " II + CPU and Apple" II + single disk drive 1983
list prices, and from current suggested list prices and component specifications ol other
peripheral manufacturers Commodore 64'" and Commodore logo are trademarks of
Commodore Electronics Ltd and or Commodore Business Machines, Inc. Apple " II + Is a
trademark of Apple Computer Inc Spartan " is a trademark ol Mimic Systems Inc and has
no association with Commodore Electronics or Apple Computer Inc. The Spartan " Is
manufactured by Mimic Systems under license granted by ATG Electronics Inc of
Victoria, B.C. Canada
TO ORDER CALL
1-800-MODULAR
(663-8527)
• -•
HARDWARE REVIEW
Upgrades for the
TRS-80 Model 100
Equipment
for adding
versatility and
convenience
BY TERRY KEPNER
Terry Kepner (POB 481,
Peterborough, NH 03458) is a
freelance writer and programmer. He
has been writing about computers
since 1979.
The Radio Shack Model 100 was the
first truly portable computer with
built-in software. Because of that, it
received rave reviews and gained immense
popularity. But it was also criticized because
it couldn't be expanded with hardware: It
lacked a disk-drive interface and options for
increasing the memory, for using a video
monitor or larger screen display, and for an
expansion box.
But all that has changed. You can now in-
crease the memory capacity to 96K bytes
with more software, add disk drives, in-
crease the display to a full 80 characters by
24 lines, and add expansion boxes that in-
clude real-world interfaces (analog to digital)
for connecting to other equipment.
Memory Modules
When the Model 100 was introduced, only
Radio Shack sold the 8K-byte memory
modules. Now six companies sell the chips
for considerably less. (See the text box on
page 336 for the sources of products men-
tioned.) These modules are literally a snap
to install: Turn off the computer, remove the
back, locate the empty RAM (random-
access read/write memory) sockets, plug in
the 8K-byte chip modules, and reassemble
the unit. Any technician can do the job in
1 5 minutes, and a brave novice can do it
almost as quickly.
Memory Expansion
The Model 100 gives you 32 K bytes of RAM
with all the memory sockets filled. The next
step in expanding RAM involves the up-
grades that use the bus socket located on
the bottom of the computer, in the expan-
sion compartment.
PG Design's 32K-byte RAM bank ($32 5)
plugs into the expansion socket and in-
cludes its own battery. It uses CMOS (com-
plementary metal-oxide semiconductor)
memory, like the internal RAM, and the in-
clusion of the battery turns the expansion
board into a miniature self-powered bank.
The unit can be removed for several weeks
without losing data. Unfortunately, the
board also covers up the access to the ex-
pansion ROM (read-only memory) socket,
so you can't use any other devices while the
"memory bank" is installed. Nor can you
transfer data between the external bank and
the internal memory. In operation you can
use either the internal or the external
memory: programs can't span the banks
(i.e., you can't have a 40K-byte program or
data file). A simple one-line BASIC program
is used to switch between the two banks.
Cryptronics offers even more convenience
with its 96K-byte expansion memory bank
($42 5). It fits inside the expansion compart-
ment but doesn't cover the expansion ROM
socket. It. too, includes a battery'. A program
is provided for transferring data from bank
to bank.
The next level of memory upgrade is also
made by Cryptronics, the PortaPac Z-100
RAM disk. This device plugs into the
RS-232C port of the Model 100 and pro-
vides storage capacities of 60K bytes
($325). 120K bytes ($395), 180K bytes
($465). and 240K bytes ($53 5). Each block
of 60K bytes is treated as a "drive." The unit
measures 1.75 inches high by 6 inches wide
by 10 inches deep and weighs 3.75 pounds
(including its internal sealed lead-acid bat-
tery). The battery is recharged with an AC
adapter while the unit is in use: it powers
the RAM disk for 2Vi to 4 hours of con-
tinuous use or 6 to 20 hours of storage time
(depending on the amount of RAM). The
PortaPac Z-100 includes operating software
in internal ROM and a BASIC program you
load into your computer and use to control
the unit. The disadvantages of the unit are
its short memory retention and its hefty
amount of radio frequency interference.
Radios and televisions can't operate within
about 30 feet of the unit.
Data Storage
Permanent data storage for the Model 100
was originally limited to cassette tapes. Now
{continued)
«— Inquiry 249
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 335
REVIEW: MODEL 100 UPGRADES
several choices are available: wafer
tape. 5 W-inch floppy disks, and
3 '/2-inch disks, with bubble-memory
under development
Holmes Engineering was first on the
scene with its wafer-tape drive system,
the Portable Micro Drive (PMD)
($369.50), which operates from the
Model 100 RS-232C port. The PMD is
about the same size as the Model
100. The drive is battery-powered with
an AC adapter/charger and includes
its own internal RAM for RAM-disk
operation. The wafer tapes are about
20 to 30 times faster than cassette
tapes for data saving and loading and
are "endless loop" tapes. Micro wafer
tapes come in various sizes from 5 to
50 feet. The PMD treats the tapes as
"slow" disk drives, automatically
searching for sections large enough to
store files. (You don't have to worry
about "overwriting" other files or pro-
grams: the PMD won't let you unless
you specifically tell it to erase a tape
file.) Like the PortaPac Z-100. the PMD
can store only ASCII (American Stan-
dard Code for Information Inter-
change) files and is controlled primari-
ly through the Model 100 TELCOM
program.
Standard disk drives and an 80-
character by 2 5-line display on a
video monitor are available with
Radio Shack's Disk/Video Interface
($799). But this ties you to a desk. If
you want portability, you have two
choices: the Holmes Engineering
Chipmunk and the PICdisc Micro
Drive, which both use 3!/2-inch disks
with 360K-byte capacity.
The Chipmunk, available from the
Portable Computer Support Group for
$599, is a battery-operated unit with
an AC adapter/charger. It measures
5'/2 inches wide by 2'/2 inches tall by
7/2 inches deep and weighs only 2/2
{continued)
Where to Get Upgrades
Memory Modules
Memory Expansion
Expansion ROMs
Radio Shack/Tandy Corp.
PG Design
Lucid. Write-ROM
1800 One Tandy Center
(see address above)
Portable Computer Support
Fort Worth. TX 76102
Group
$119.95
Cryptronics Inc.
(see address above)
(see address above)
Purple Computing
The Ultimate ROM
2068 Ventura Blvd.
Traveling Software Inc.
Camarilla CA 93010
11050 Fifth Ave. NE
$44.95
Data Storage
Portable Micro Drive
Seattle. WA 9812 5
Cryptronics Inc.
Holmes Engineering
Multiplan
11711 Coley River Circle
(see address above)
Radio Shack/Tandy Corp.
Suite 7
(see address above)
Fountain Valley. CA 92708
Disk/Video Interface
$29
Radio Shack/Tandy Corp.
ROM2
(see address above)
Polar Engineering and
PC Design
Consulting
66040 Gratiot
Richmond, MI 48062
The Chipmunk
Portable Computer Support
Box 7188
Nikishka. AK 9963 5
$48.50
Economy Computer Concepts
Group
11035 Harry Hines Blvd.
No. 207
Peripherals
Thinview LCD panel
Box 2047
Dallas. TX 75229
AXONIX
North Babylon. NY 11703
417 Wakara Way
$39
PICdisc Micro Drive
Salt Lake City. UT 84108
I.O. DataTech
Personal Integrated Computers
PL- 1000
48-60 38th St.
18013 Skypark Circle
Elexor Associates
Long Island City. NY 11101
Suite D
Box 246
$69.95
Irvine. CA 92714
Morris Plains. N| 07950
Holmes Engineering
Bubble-memory device
Black lack modem adapter
5175 Green Pine Dr.
SoundSight Communications
Microperipheral Corp.
Salt Lake City, UT 84123
2807 Pelham Place
2 565 152nd Ave. NE
$49.95
Hollywood. CA 90668
Redmond, WA 98052
336 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Kir 1 12
LIMITED EDITION
INTELLIGENT REFLECTIONS
Fascinating.. .And Unique!
The two 1985 Byte covers shown above are now available
as 16" X 20" limited edition prints. Each edition is strictly
limited to 1 000 prints, which are individually inspected, signed
and numbered by the artist. Robert Tinney. These excellent
reproductions are made from the original painting s(not from
transparencies or photos) to ensure accurate color fidelity.
Byte Limited Edition Classics are printed on select 100%
cotton fiber stock This is a museum grade acid free paper,
highly resistant to yellowing and cracking: you will be assured
of a print which will retain its color and beauty for generations
Accompanying each print is a handsome Certificate of Au-
thenticity, which is also personally signed and numbered by
the artist, and which certifies the quality and limited number
of the edition.
Price and Shipping
The price of each Byte Limited Edition Classic is $55: if
two or more prints are ordered, the price of each is only $45.
Beautiful 16" X 20"
Limited Edition Prints,
each signed and numbered
by the Artist.
#B
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STORAGE SPACE
Byte Limited Edition Classics are shipped flat, and are guaranteed to arrive
undamaged or be immediately replaced. In fact, if for any reason you are
not satisfied with your order, you may return it within 30 days for a no
questions asked refund. Your prints will be shipped UPS Blue Label (two
day delivery), and will usually be shipped within one week of receipt of order.
Ordering
To order your Byte Limited Edition Classic(s). just clip out and mail the
coupon below. If you prefer, you may call in a MasterCard or Visa order
to Robert Tinney Graphics. I -(504)272-7266.
Send me the following print for $55($45 each for two or more)
Qty # Title Amount
$
□ I have enclosed check or money order to Robert
Tinney Graphics
I j Please just send me your free color brochure.
Mail this coupon to:
Robert Tinney Graphics
1864 N. Pamela Drive
Baton Rouge. Louisiana 70815
postage & handling $4($1 overseas) $
Total $
Bill my □ Visa or □ Mastercharge: Exp Date
Card No.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 337
Inquiry 125 for End-Users.
Inquiry 126 for DEALERS ONLY
EARTH
LAUNCHES
NEW STARS
EARTH COMPUTERS launches two of the
"Hottest" new stars in the S-100 Universe.
Both the TURBOMASTER 8" and
TURBOSLAVE P are Star performers, featur-
ing high speed Z-80H CPUs.
EARTH'S new stars are fully compatible
with the Multi-user TurboDOS operating
system, and will operate in most S-100
systems, including pre-IEEE 696 systems.
TURBOMASTER 8
I This outstanding new 8-Bit Single
[Board Computer offers features that
are out of this world:
• On-board ST-506 Winchester Controller
• TurboDOS, CP/M, MP/M compatible
• 5-V4" and 8" Floppy Controller
• Up to 256KB of memory* 2 Serial ports
• 8 MHz, Z-80H CPU • 1 Parallel port
TURBOSLAVE I
fi
[The perfect companion to the
TURBOMASTER 8 or other
1 8/16-Bit Master processor. This
high speed slave utilizes an
8 MHz Z-80H CPU and offers
extensive on-board diagnostics...
an industry exclusive.
• No paddle boards
• S-100, IEEE 696 compatible
• 128KB of RAM
• 2 RS-232 ports, 50-38.4K Baud
• FIFO communications
EARTH COMPUTERS also manufac-
turers a growing line of PC com-
patible stellar performers such as:
• TURBOSLAVE PC™— an 8 MHz
Z-80 single board slave processor
that runs CP/M applications on
a PC and is compatible with the
TurboDOS multi-user operating
system.
• TURBOACCEL 286"— a high
performance 80286 accelerator
that boosts PC performance up
to five times.
• EARTHNET PC™ and EARTHNET
S-100, the low cost, ARCNET-
compatible way to tie PC and
S-100 systems together.
To put these stars to work for you,
call or write EARTH COMPUTERS.
BE SURE TO ASK ABOUT HOW
YOU CAN WIN A FREE Z-80
CO-PROCESSOR BOARD.
EARTH COMPUTERS
"Building Blocks For The Super Micro"
P.O. Box 8067, Fountain Valley, CA 92728
TELEX: 910997 6120 EARTH FV
PHONE: (714) 964-5784
338 BYTE • DECEMBER I985
REVIEW: MODEL 100 UPGRADES
PICdisc turns the
Model 100 into a
CP/M computer.
pounds. It plugs into the expansion
socket on the bottom of the Model
100. You can't use the memory-
expansion modules with the Chip-
munk plugged in. It uses a small
CDOS program to control the unit.
The internal batteries provide 2 hours
of continuous use (such as a disk data
sort) or about 12 hours of intermittent
use (loading and saving files).
PICdisc ($799) is manufactured by
Personal Integrated Computers (PIC)
and uses a different approach. It in-
cludes a 32K-byte RAM bank and
turns a Model 100 into a 64K-byte
CP/M computer. (You must have a
32K-byte Model 100 to use PICdisc.)
The unit attaches directly to the left
side of the Model 100 with a special
metal mounting plate you bolt to its
bottom. The mounting plate holds the
drive connector and attaches to the
expansion bus with a short cable that
runs to the expansion compartment.
A plastic lid covers the entire bottom
of the computer and the connecting
cable to prevent the mounting plate
from scratching tabletops.
With the mounting plate in position,
the PICdisc drive can be quickly in-
stalled or removed without putting
stress on the delicate expansion
socket of the Model 100. The mount-
ing plate has an expansion connector
for the drive. The bottom lid adds
only one-quarter inch to the depth of
the Model 100. The PICdisc runs for
2/2 hours continuously or about 20
hours intermittently.
The disadvantage of the PICdisc is
that it completely usurps the com-
puter's ROM operating system and
programs, turning the Model 100 into
a CP/M computer. Special software
automatically saves a RAM image to
disk when you boot the PICdisc, so
you don't lose the data in memory.
(When you exit CP/M, this image is
reloaded into your computer.) And
you can pull files out of the RAM
image for use in CP/M programs. In
other words, PICdisc wasn't designed
to complement the Model 100 pro-
grams—it was designed to replace the
Model 100 ROM.
The advantage of the PICdisc is ac-
cess to the CP/M system and all the
programs available for it. Unfortunate-
ly, only PIC supplies the CP/M pro-
grams in the 3 '/2-inch format, but the
company will transfer programs and
files to that format if you supply the
original 5!4-inch disk.
The PICdisc system incorporates the
T/Maker Integrated Software System,
which includes word processing, rela-
tional database management, spread-
sheet, graphics, and a spelling
checker. This almost offsets the disad-
vantage of losing the Model 100 ROM
programs. Once you start using
T/Maker, you probably won't notice
the loss of the Model 100 native
mode.
SoundSight Communications manu-
factures a bubble-memory expansion
device. The device uses bubble-mem-
ory modules that are slower than nor-
mal RAM but faster than a disk drive,
and they never lose stored data until
you order it erased. The price runs
from $750 to $900 for the first 128K
bytes, with possible expansion to 512
megabytes.
The bubble-memory unit is a sim-
ple bolt-on case that attaches to the
bottom of the computer, leaving the
expansion compartment door acces-
sible. It makes the Model 100 about
one-half inch thicker. Like the Model
100, it's powered by A A batteries.
Expansion ROMs
ROMs have advantages over RAM-
based programs because they don't
require any RAM and you don't have
to load them into RAM to use them.
Lucid ($149.95) and Write-ROM
($149.95) are produced by the Por-
table Computer Support Group. Lucid
is a spreadsheet program that rivals
Lotus 1-2-3 in capabilities (except disk
I/O routines, of course). Trying to
describe all its abilities would require
a separate review. Its most unusual
[continued)
EXECUTIVE
PRIVILEGE.
Introducing the $268 OKIMATE 20 color
printer for IBM® and Apple® users.
We admit it-the OKIMATE 20
isn't for everyone. Just IBM and
Apple users who like to execute
their big ideas with style.
The OKIMATE 20 is a powerful
business tool, capable of printing
ruthlessly accurate performance
charts in over 100 vivid colors. It
can paint sales records and fore-
casts with the same dynamic in-
tensity. Or process your conclu-
sions with crisp, near-letter quality
text. It can even make overhead
transparencies to show your rec-
ommendations to the entire com-
pany. And it's easy enough for
a busy executive to operate—
everything is included.*
Rank sure has its privileges. And
the new OKIMATE 20 certainly is
one. For your nearest Okidata
dealer, call l-800-OKIDATA
(in New Jersey 609-235-2600).
Mt. Laurel. NJ 08054.
58*
* 15
: 7.5
I 5
NARKET FORECAST
5X - 8
83 84 85 86 87
K .
' W^PUJWPHJHWM
OKIDATA
m an OKI AMERICA company
Inquiry 269.
•$268 f& manufacturers suggested retail price,
OKIMATE 20 "Plug n Print" package includes black and color ribbon cartridges, paper and two <
programs. "Color Screen Rant and "Learn to Print."
The above charts were created with Fast Graphs* and printed using OKIMATE 20 s
Color Screen Print program through multiple-passes.
Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines, Inc.
Inquiry 314
I B M / P C
CROSS
ASSEMBLERS
We've been selling these
industrial-quality assemblers to
the development system mar-
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available for the IBM PC.
FEATURES:
• Fully relocatable
• Separate code, data, stack,
memory segments
• Linker included
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• Generate appropriate HEX or
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• Macro capability
• CPM80, MPM, ISIS versions
available
• Conditional assembly
• Cross reference
• Supports manufacturer's
mnemonics
• Expanded list of directives
• 1 year free update
Assemblers now available
include:
Chip
Chip
1802/1805
NSC800
8051
F8, 3870
6500/01/02
Z8
6800/01/02
Z80
6803/08
9900/9995
6804
Z8000
6805
68000
6809
6301
6811
8048/49/50/42
8085
65C02/C102/C112
Take advantage of leading-edge
technology. Get your own Reims
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Mastercard or order by phone:
(408) 265-5411
Relational Memory Systems, Inc.
P.O. Box 6719
San Jose, California 95150
Telex: 171618
Prices subject to change without notice.
Software distributor inquiries invited.
rains
REVIEW: MODEL 100 UPGRADES
feature is that it doesn't require RAM
for empty cells; only spreadsheet cells
holding data use up memory. Its max-
imum size is 126 columns by 254
rows.
Write-ROM upgrades the Model 100
by replacing the built-in TEXT pro-
gram with a more powerful word pro-
cessor. It has all the features you
might expect: margin control, center-
ing, justification, headers, footers,
search and replace, and 3 5 other func-
tions. You can also prepare WordStar-
compatible files on it and perform
mail-merge functions.
The Ultimate ROM ($229.95) is a
collection of three Traveling Software
programs on one plug-in ROM chip.
The trio consists of T-base, a relational
database manager; Traveling Writer, a
text formatter; and Idea!, a thought
processor that can organize ideas into
outlines. All the programs use a Con-
fig file that lets you modify them.
Multiplan ($149.95) from Radio
Shack is the popular spreadsheet pro-
gram scaled down to the Model 100.
Almost all the features, except disk I/O
commands, have been reproduced,
including template and data portabili-
ty to other versions of Multiplan. Its
size limit is 63 columns by 99 rows.
For the 8085 machine-language pro-
grammer there is ROM2 ($85), a
macro assembler/symbolic debugger.
The assembler allows macros with
symbolic arguments, conditional as-
sembly-code blocks, and label table
retention. The debugger allows in-
teractive code patching, interactive
code execution, program simulation
tracing, single-stepping, breakpoint
setting, and other functions. ROM2 is
also of interest to BASIC program-
mers. It includes a renumber utility,
lists a RAM directory with file sizes,
can copy and compare .DO files, and
has a global search-and-replace utility.
Peripherals
For Model 100 owners unhappy with
the laptop's limited display, Axonix
has the Thinview LCD panel ($699). It
measures 1 % inches thick by 6\i
inches high by 1 1 Va inches wide. It's
an 80-column by 2 5-line battery-oper-
ated display. The unit plugs into the
RS-232C port or expansion bus socket
and includes driver software that
routes the normal LCD input to the
Thinview. Weight, including batteries,
is less than three pounds. The nicad
batteries provide up to 16 hours of
continuous use. The display is 640 by
200 pixels for a total of 128,000 ad-
dressable pixels. While the unit is nor-
mally set for 80 characters, you can
get a compressed display of up to 106
characters per line. The Thinview has
its own 16K bytes of memory for the
display and has scrolling, paging, and
cursor-control capability. You can
even get up to 64 K bytes of program-
mable memory in the unit.
To connect your Model 100 to the
real world, there is the $549 PL-1000
from Elexor Associates. This RS-232C
device has a 16-channel 12-bit analog-
to-digital input, a 2 -channel digital-to-
analog input, 32-bit digital I/O, non-
volatile memory, and room for two
additional boards in the chassis. Ex-
pansion boards currently available
handle digital I/O, A/D timer/counter,
triac, optoisolator, relay, battery op-
tion, and a direct bus to the Model
100. The unit is only slightly larger
than the Model 100.
Finally, if you are frustrated with
hotel phone systems that don't give
you access to the phone lines (no
modular plugs) and don't like the low
reliability of the Radio Shack acoustic
couplers, the Black lack modular jack
($49.95) adapter from Microperiph-
eral Corp. might be just what you
want. To use it, you remove the
mouthpiece from the telephone,
screw in the Black Jack, plug the
modular cable into the Black Jack, dial
your remote system, and start com-
municating. The Black Jack cir-
cumvents unreliable and noisy
acoustic couplers and lets you trans-
mit and receive from phones that
don't use the standard modular plugs.
Summary
The Model 100 has come quite a
distance since its introduction. With
its current low price and the number
of upgrades available, the Model 100
is one of the most versatile laptop
computers in the world. ■
340 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
2400 bps modems:
Do you Really need
another speed?
Inquiry 254 for End-Users. Inquiry 255 for DEALERS ONLY
For more information, call us toll-free at
1-800-328-9717 (in Minnesota, call 1-612-631-3550).
• Is the shift from 300 to 1 200 bps going to repeat itself
at 2400 bps? The answer is both yes and no. There
certainly are applications for 2400 bps asynch dial-up
modems, but we shouldn't expect 1200 bps to die
overnight.
• 2400 bps modems can improve throughput, thereby
getting tasks done quicker and more economically.
However, 1200 bps has become the virtual standard for
professional dial-up communications, and most users
are satisfied with it. So why consider a 2400 bps modem
at all?
• One reason is flexibility. If the modem you select
operates at all three speeds (300, 1200 & 2400) in
accordance with accepted industry standards, it will
serve virtually all dial-up applications now and in the
foreseeable future.
• The modem you select should be the
MultiModem224. It is Bell 21 2A and 103 compatible at
1200 and 300 bps, and CCITT V.22bis compatible at
2400. It is also 100% compatible with the Hayes
command set, meaning that it will work with virtually all
communications software packages, at all three speeds.
Other features include both synchronous and
asynchronous operation, full intelligence and a phone
number memory.
• The MultiModem224 is available in both desktop and
IBM PC™ internal card versions. (There is also a rack-
mounted version for central sites.) And as a bonus, we
provide free offers from ten of the most popular on-line
information services, including CompuServe™ Dow
Jones™ and The Source.™
• A 2400/1200/300 bps modem is just a plain good
investment. Why not let the MultiModem224 provide your
communications for both today and tomorrow?
MuttiTechfifc
Systems ^Qf
The right answer every time.
82SecondAve.Se. New Brighton. MN 551 12 (612) "631 -3550. TWX: 910-563-3610
MultiTech|SB}
Systems \Sf
/ZS /T\
MuKiModem 224
2400/1200/300 BPS Intelligent Modem
/^\
/^\
Princeton
Graphic Systems
Number One
Again
Sharp resolution, full compatiblity, and rug-
ged reliability. That's what you get in every
Princeton Graphic Systems monitor. That's
why Princeton Graphic Systems is number
one in the minds of more and more personal
computer owners every year.
Only Princeton Graphic Systems offers a
complete family of quality personal computer
displays. Our color and monochrome
monitors outperform the competition every
time. That's why, for the second year in a
row, our HX-12 high resolution color monitor
has been voted best in the world.*
So for the very best in personal computer
monitors, pick the company that's number
one. Princeton Graphic Systems.
•PC WORLD Magiztne's 1985 World Class Survey
P RINCETON
PRINCETON
GRAPHIC SVSTEMS
AN INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS COMPANY
601 Ewing Street, Bldg. A, Princeton, NJ 08540, (609) 683-1 660, Telex: 821402 PGSPRIN, (800) 221-1 490 Ext. 704
342 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 292
IBM's
replacement
for its
Graphics
Printer
by Rich Malloy
Rich Malloy is BYTE's New York
editor. He can be reached at
SYTEIMcGraw-Hill. 43rd Floor.
1221 Avenue of the Americas, New
York. NY 10020.
HARDWARE REVIEW
The IBM Proprinter
You've just printed out a three-page
letter on fanfold microperforated
paper. You remove the perforation
strips and separate the pages. The letter
looks professionally typed, but now you
have to print the address on the envelope.
You remove the fanfold paper and insert the
envelope, being careful not to catch it on
the tractor-feed sprockets. Then you print
the envelope and reinsert the fanfold paper.
The whole process takes about 20 minutes.
You think that there has to be a better way
to print envelopes. And you begin to wipe
the dust off your neglected typewriter.
The new Proprinter from IBM offers a sim-
ple solution. It has a long slot on the front
panel into which you can easily insert
envelopes and single-sheet paper. The
beauty of the design is that you never have
to remove the fanfold paper.
The Proprinter has other features, too. It
can print at 84 characters per second in
draft mode or 27 cps in near-letter-quality
(what IBM calls NLQ) mode. It is compati-
ble with the Epson MX-80 and with IBM's
previous dot-matrix Graphics Printer, and
it costs a fairly reasonable $549. Unfor-
tunately, the Proprinter is not without its
problems.
At first glance, the Proprinter seems a lit-
tle larger than the Epson MX-80 or FX-80.
The control panel is on the left side of the
front panel, which makes it easier to see.
The on/off switch is on the right side, just
where it is on the IBM Personal Computer.
It fits attractively on a desk, but note that
you will probably have to use it with some
type of printer stand.
Speed
The Proprinter is fast but, like most dot-
matrix printers, not as fast as advertised. In
my tests, the printer produced at an average
of 84 cps, a long way from the advertised
200 cps. Actual speeds varied widely from
72 to 115 cps. By comparison, an Epson
FX-80 printed at 81 cps in the same test.
In emphasized mode, the Proprinter
slowed to an average of 42 cps, far from the
advertised 100 cps. And in NLQ mode, the
printer slowed to a moderate but respect-
able 27 cps, which is the closest of the three
modes to its advertised speed, 40 cps.
The Proprinter could have had better re-
sults in our benchmark tests but, toward the
end of each test, it paused between lines.
1 repeated the tests with a word-processing
program (XyWrite II Plus) and had similar re-
sults. According to the optional Proprinter
technical reference manual, the printer
pauses for "dense patterns" because it
thinks the print head is too hot. The manual
suggests that you not turn the printer on
and off unnecessarily, but I got similar
results whether I had just turned the printer
on or left it on for a day. The guide to opera-
tions, the only manual bundled with the
printer, does not explain the problem. The
benchmark test is fairly simple (a BASIC pro-
gram that prints 50 lines of 60 As each) and
should not have caused any problems.
Print Quality
The Proprinter's print quality in draft and
emphasized modes is almost exactly like
that of the Epson MX-80. This is passable,
if not aesthetically pleasing.
In NLQ mode, the printer does much bet-
ter (see figure 1). The characters are distinct
and the dots are indiscernible. However. I
would have preferred a better typeface: 1
dislike the sans serif style, the square O, and
the house-like A. Also, in draft and em-
phasized modes, the dot of the i is not lined
up with the rest of the character. The Pro-
printer does let you download other char-
acters. I did not try this feature, but it looks
fairly straightforward.
Noise
The new ink-jet, thermal-transfer, and laser
printers are very quiet. The Proprinter harks
back to a noisier time. It seems as loud as
any dot-matrix printer I have used.
Also, because of its rather high speed, the
[continued]
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 343
AT A GLANCE
Name
IBM Proprmter
Type
Dot-matrix printer
Manufacturer
IBM National Distribution
Division
1000 Westchester Ave
White Plains, NY 10604
(800) 426-2468
Features
Draft mode: 200 cps (84 cps
actual)
NLQ mode: 40 cps (27 cps
actual)
Maximum graphics resolution:
240 dots per inch
Compatible with IBM
Graphics Printer and Epson
MX-80
Front slot allows easy insertion
of single-sheet paper and
envelopes
Tractor-feed and friction-feed
mechanisms
Options
Serial interface $99
5K-byte buffer $35
Ribbon cartridge $9.25
Technical reference notes $28
Documentation
160-page guide to operations
Warranty
One year
Price
$549
^^^^^^^^^^^BtBK^^*
PRINT SPEED (CHARACTERS/SEC)
III
105
_ m
107
WZMMM / 'WHi%
PRINT SPEED (CHARACTERS/SEC)
20 40 60 80
DRAFT MODE
PRINT SPEED (CHARACTERS/SEC]
100 20 40 60 80
EMPHASIZED MODE
1
WfflMSk
LIST PRICE ($100)
\
~^
1
WMWA
10 20 30 40 50
NEAR-LETTER-QUALITY MODE
| IBM PROPRINTER HI 1 EPSON FX-80
0KIDATA MICROLINE 92
10
This is the IBM Proprinter, Emphasized mode
This is the Epson FX-80, draft mode.
This is the Ok 1 data v . icto I i ne 9£ in draft
A comparison of the IBM Proprinter with the The print speeds were determined by timing how
Epson FX-80 and the Okidata Microlme 92. The long it took the printers to print 50 lines of 60 As
pitch for all the printers is 10 characters per inch. each. The prices shown are list prices.
344 B YTE • DECEMBER 1 98 =i
• 13
■Bra^K'^a
■ a ^ —
jjflll
IBtimaEIHB ■^t'itEf'<a»>IEMSi'
fl"~flf
E5u, i.- B IB
CHOOSE «. ENTER
THE X-10 POWERHOUSE
INTERFACES WITH YOUR COMPUTER
TO CONTROL YOUR HOME. ..FOR SECURITY,
COMFORT AND ENERGY SAVINGS.
This remarkable Interface lets you run your home through your
Apple lie or He, Commodore 64 or 128 and a mouse, keyboard
or joystick.
When you're away, it makes your home look and sound lived in.
When you're home, it can turn off the TV at night and wake you
up to stereo and fresh brewed coffee in the morning. It can
even turn on your air conditioner and control your heating.
SPECIAL COLOR GRAPHICS MAKE PROGRAMMING A SNAP.
You simply pick a room from
the display screen. Use your
mouse, joystick, or key-
board to position graphics of i
lights or appliances. Then
follow on-screen instructions
to program any light or ap-
pliance to go on or off when-
ever you choose. You can
even control thermostats, light intensity and more.
THE WAY IT WORKS. The X-10 Powerhouse Interface is cable-
connected to an Apple RS-232 port or a Commodore "User"
port and plugged into a standard 110V outlet. After it is pro-
grammed, the Interface sends digitally encoded signals through
your home wiring to special X-10 Modules. To control a lamp or
appliance, you simply plug the electrical device into a Module
Inquiry 379
»
-I " J J '
i] I L J
I
THE CAT.
-WV
Model CP290
and then plug the Module into an outlet.
The Interface can control up to 256 Mod-
ules throughout your home and won't
interfere with normal use of lights and
appliances.
There are plug-in Appliance Modules,
, Lamp Modules, Wall Switch Replacement
^*^ Modules and Special 220V Modules for
heavy duty appliances such as water
heaters and room air conditioners. Plus Thermostat Controllers
for central heating and air conditioning, Telephone Responders
to control your home from any phone, and much more.
IT WON'T TIE UP YOUR COMPUTER. Use your computer only
for programming. When you're finished, disconnect the Inter-
face from your computer and keep it plugged into any conven-
ient power outlet in your home. It will operate as a stand-alone
controller with battery back-up and will run your home
automatically.
SURPRISINGLY INEXPENSIVE. A Powerhouse System includ-
ing the Interface, software and connecting cables costs less
than $150. X-10 Modules are less than $20 each.
Software for IBM PC and compatibles available soon.
For the Dealer Nearest You Call: 1-800 526-0027
Or, write to: X-10 (USA) Pn NJ: (201) 784-9700]
185A Legrand Avenue
Northvale, NJ 07647
XiO POWERHOUSE
NUMBER ONE IN HOME CONTROL
Apple, Apple lie and Apple He are registered trademarks of Apple Computer. Inc. Commodore 64 and 128
are registered trademarks of Commodore Int'l Ltd IBM PC is a registered trademark of International
Business Machines Corporation.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 345
REVIEW: PROPRINTER
sound it produces is up in the high-
frequency end of the audio spectrum.
This can be disturbing. Because of the
noise, I would not recommend this
printer in crowded office situations
unless a soundproof enclosure is
available.
Compatibility
Compatibility ensures that a large
number of software packages will run
on a new printer. The Proprinter is not
only compatible with the graphics
and accented characters used by the
IBM PC. but IBM claims that it is com-
patible with all the software designed
for the Graphics Printer. I tested
XyWrite II Plus configured for an
Epson printer, and it ran fine even
during microjustification (i.e., justify-
ing the right margin by inserting small
spaces between each letter in a line).
I also tested WordStar 3.3 without
problems.
For graphics I tested Fancy Font, a
software package from SoftCraft Inc.
that can print a document in various
type styles and is similar to MacWrite
on the Macintosh. The program
worked well when set up in Epson
MX-80 mode but not when set up for
an Epson FX-80.
I found only one major difference
between the control codes of the Pro-
printer and those of the Epsons. In
the Epson family, the sequence Esc-
G causes the printer to go into
double-strike mode (each dot of a
character is printed twice, one right
below the other). On the Proprinter.
Esc-G starts the NLQ mode (see figure
2 for a demonstration of printing
capabilities).
Learning and Ease of Use
The Proprinter is fairly easy to set up,
but the manual leaves something to
be desired. Installing fanfold paper is
not explained until page 49. And al-
though the manual is well written and
contains only a couple of typos, it is
littered with little boxes marked "Op-
erator Note!" For some reason, the
author apparently expected people
other than the operator to read the
manual. I have always preferred to
think of myself as a user rather than
an operator.
Using this printer with cut-sheet
paper is straightforward but not easy.
To advance the paper line by line, you
need only insert the paper into the
front slot and press the Line Feed but-
ton until you reach the desired posi-
tion. However, it is hard to determine
the correct print position. It is very dif-
ficult to view the part of the page
where the print head is positioned
and, for some completely unfathom-
able reason, the printer begins one-
half inch below the print head's cur-
rent position. As a result, you might
find it very difficult to position pre-
printed forms accurately.
I also found it a little hard to use fan-
fold paper. The printer includes a
tractor-feed mechanism, but it is a
"pusher" rather than a "puller"; in
other words, it pushes the paper
through the print mechanism. This
saves paper by letting you tear off a
sheet right after it has been printed,
but the scheme can cause problems,
especially with inexpensive, light-
weight paper. A few times when I in-
stalled fanfold paper, the paper's
leading edge stuck on part of the
print-head mechanism. It is almost im-
possible to back up the paper manu-
ally without mangling the paper's per-
foration strips, and it is difficult to
disengage the paper from the tractor-
feed's sprocket wheels. I therefore
found it very hard to remove a man-
gled page from the printer.
The Proprinter lacks two features
that, although missing on many
printers, would make life much easier
for the user. First, a prominent switch
on the front panel should let you
change print modes. The Proprinter
{continued}
1
«
#*•/.&■' ( )*+,-. /0123<+56789: ;< = >
?
Si
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZC \ ]
S\
—
'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz-C !
>
"V
9G£aaaa9ee£'i j iAA£aefESo6GCiyou<t
£
V
P* f a i 6 li n K a 2 t r- -, '£ V 4 i « » !;; | | | J J jl _ - Jj II
Tl
JJ
a J i L *- r r - f- F lr "■ if - rr lr = ir *- * f w °- L r ir iH" J
r
1
— | |"artrTTEa-HT§eQ<scDj 1 5enEE±><fjvs o
-
-
4 n 2 .
Figure I: An example of the characters printed by the IBM Proprinter in NLQ mode.
346 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
REVIEW: PROPRINTER
Draft r, ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYabcdefghi j k Imnopqrstuv
wxyOi S345&7
Boldfaces ABCDEf-GHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWX Yabcdef ghi jklmnopqrs
tuvwxy0123^t
Under i. i ned : ABCDEFGH I JKl HNOF QRSTUVWXYabe de ? qh \ ^ I :ti icpq
f'StUVK,-! vOlc:
Nonpr i nt i ng :
Compressed: ABCDEFGHI JKLmJ0PQRSTUyi4XVabcdefghiikl«riopQr5tuvwxy0i23456?B9
S ( 1 1 "i e i "' S C V" 3 D t '.'. ^ " c ° K F ra ,H I " T ' ' :: '■ " M lvl ' ' F <:;< " * ' UVMXV«be d «? ■r <a l"> * .i ►< 1 «< > i o r->
<::| v tin t; *..t \s w >■< y O X
;::> U b S C V" 1 p t 5 /a, 3 c Ei e;: F 1::) 1 -1 X ..')' K t... r-i isi R cc! P» ra T U v w X v m. b> <:.- el »» f cj n 1 ,<i k- :i. m 1 > <::. p cq 1™
tut "l: t..t >• t*M x y O X t-V.' 3
Special accent characters (codes 131—140): a'aaaC=e'ee'i 5.'
'i selected ttcmb character set S)
C o n t r o 1 C o d e s
Escape E: Emphasi xed
Escape F s Cancels Emphasized
Escape G: Double-Strike (near letter qual)
Escape Hs Cancels above
Escape E & G: Emphasized Double strike
Escape F t. H: Cancel emphasized double stv ike
Escape I ASCII E: Near Letter Quality
Else ape 1 ASCII 0: Normal quality
(••!: u e- .« p:> «n s-ij A S3 G2 I X O u *'::S *.-i pa «ro i •■■ hu <:. r" :t. p tj
Escape T : C a n c: e I s a b o v e
F:~. Ml <::: .w pa e» 3 A S3 d X X X n t'ii t..l l-j «n c:: V j. p:> t:
E s c a p e "!' :: C a nc e 1 s a b o v e
Escape " " ASCII is Underline foil owing te>»:t
Escape " " ASCII Os Cancel above
Escape ":": Start 1H characters per inch pitch
ASCII IS: Start 10 characters per inch pitch
EI S- CC SH |3 «~* i-J rt £:::>< 1. I. 1 S OoUtfcj 1 ©• IVM
i. ci ms? |3 s
Escape W ASCII 0: Cancel double-wide printing
ASCII 15: Condensed printing
ASCII 18: Cancels above
ASCII 15 Escape E: Emphasized Condensed printing
ASCII IS Escape F: Cancels Emphasized Condensed print
i ng
ASCII 15 Escape S: Double strike Condensed printing
ASCII IS Escape H: Cancels Double strike Condensed pr
:i nting
Escape ":" Escape G: Start 12 characters per inch pitch, double
strike
ASCII IS Escape H: Cancel above
Figure 2: Samples of the Proprinter's printing capabilities.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 347
■*
• With Hub Rings
• With Write Protect Tabs
• With Static-Free,
Dust-Free Envelopes
• With User ID Labels
• In Factory Sealed
Poly Packs
100",. ERROR FREE ■ LIFETIME WARRANTY
MEET OR EXCEED APPLICABLE ANSI ECMA ISO
STANDARDS
Minimum quantity 50diskeiles Discount for 300or
more diskettes Shipping and Handling: S4 00 per
100diskette5 Reduced shipping charge for larger quan-
tities COD add S4 00 Cash or certified check Ml
residents add 4% sales tax Prices subject to change
without notice
IF
J
Precision Data Products
P.O. Bo» 8367. Grand Rapids. MI 49508
(6 1 6) 452-3457 • Michigan I -800-632-2468
Outside Michigan I -800-258-0028
Inquiry 287
PC EXPANSIONS
AST StxPakPlus(64K)
$229
StxPakPlus (384k)
$259
MegaPlus(64k)
. $269
Advantage (128k)
$409
Advantage (1.5M)
. $569
I/O Plus
$129
PCnet - starter kit
$809
Ouadboard (64k)
$193
Quadboard (384k)
$229
Ouadmeg-AT (128k)
$319
Quadmeg-AT(2M)
$529
Quadport-AT.
$105
HERCULES graphics board
$319
Color Card with PP
$159
HAYES Modems 2400
Seal
Smartmodem 1 200
$409
Smartmodem 1 200B
$379
Set ol 9 chips (64k)
.. $6
256k chips (each)
.. $3
8087 chip
$119
Maynard Disk Controller
$100
Sandstar Series
Scall
Internal Hard Disks from ...
$609
MaynStream tape backupfrom
$979
Oume 142A
$99
Teac FD55B
$99
Tandon TM100-2
$109
CDC 9409
$119
Verbatim Datalife disks (10)
$20
VLM Computer Electronics
10 Park Place • Mornstown NJ 07960
1201)267-3268 Visa, MC, Check
Of COD
B4K-128K-256K
DRAMS
80287-8-80287-3
8087-3 "8087-2
8087-1
eiTTNCfi
€L€CTRONICS
899 SOUTH COAST HIGHWAY
LAGUNA BEACH, CA 92651
(714) 497-6200
CALL NOW FOR FREE CATALOG
ATTENTION DEALERS ! !
IBM Compatible
Lowest Prices For
Quantity Buys*
5-9*
S124
$134
XT 8 Slot 256K Motherboard (0K)
XT 8 Slot 640K Motherboard (0K)
Monochrome Graphics Card w/
printer port* (720x348 Graphics
mode, 64K, can run Lotus) S 84
384K Multifunction Card (w/cables,
software, 0KI $ 9
Color Graphics Card $ 67
Multi I/O Card $ 97
Floppy Controller Card $ 37
Cases, Power Supplies, Serial Card,
& much more Call
Supreme Company
1630 Oakland Rd, A 103
San lose, CA 95131
408-971-6400 FAX 408-971-6115
TLX 172412 Scam SNJ
* For larger orders call for quote
Inquiry 343
EPROM PROGRAMMER
A great value, here's why:
• Programs and reads 2716 through 27513
EPROMs. 2516 through 2564 EPROMs.
52B13 through 52B33 EEPROMs and
others to manufacturers' specs
• Programs A suffix and CMOS parts
• Uses fast programming algorithm
• Requires no pesonahty modules
• RS-232 input requires no special software
• Includes communications software for IBM
PC and compatibles
• Uses Intel, Motorola, Tektronix and other
formats
• Splits files for 16 bit systems
• Gold Textool ZlF socket
• Sturdy Construction
• Full 1 Year Warranty
BP
MICROSYSTEMS
5325 Glenmont, Suite E, Houston, TX 77081
[713] B67-163B
Inquiry 43
Software for
Engineers
Electronic Circuit Analysis
• Nonlinear transient, DC, AC analysis
• Worst Case, Monte-Carlo
• Frequency, time dependent parts
$450.
Logic Simulation System
• Full delay analysis
(min, max, typical, load dependent)
• Ability to save simulation results
$395.
Both have:
• Built in editor, fully interactive
• Macros (unlimited)
• Large circuits
For MS-DOS, 192k minimum
Tatum Labs
33 Main Street
Newtown, CT 06470
(203) 426-2184
Inquiry 35
Inquiry 346
REVIEW: PROPRINTER
In many ways,
the IBM Proprinter
seems to be a done of
the Epson FX-80.
has such a switch, but it is tiny,
unlabeled, and hidden deep inside
the machine. Second, you should not
have to press the Online button
before the Line Feed or Form Feed
buttons. In order to skip to the next
page on the Proprinter, you have to
press Online, Form Feed, and Online
again. Why not just Form Feed? Al-
most all printers are set up this way,
and I have no idea why. In fact, the
only printer 1 know that has both of
the above features is the Texas Instru-
ments Model 855.
Conclusion
In many ways, the Proprinter seems
to be a clone of the Epson FX-80. Its
two distinguishing features are its
NLQ mode and its slot in the front to
allow easy printing on single-sheet
paper and envelopes. Unfortunately,
the printer has some problems han-
dling fanfold paper, and the NLQ font
could have been made more pleasing
without much extra work.
The important things to consider in
a dot-matrix printer are cost, print
quality, speed, noise, compatibility,
reliability, and ease of use. The Pro-
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after a short test; the printer seems
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around at other dot-matrix printers.
However, if you would be using this
feature fairly often. I recommend this
printer. ■
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350 BYTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 398
HARDWARE REVIEW
Panasonic's 4-Color
Graphic Penwriter
It's an
electronic
a printer,
and
graph maker
by Jon R. Edwards
The Panasonic 4-Color Graphic Pen-
writer, a versatile electronic type-
writer and graph maker, has so
great a list of "stand-alone" features that it
typewriter, is easy to overlook the RS-232C serial in-
terface that permits the Penwriter to func-
tion as a printer. The Penwriter has a built-
in graphics package, including column lay-
out and pie, bar, line, and radar graphs. You
can easily change colors and select from
among two fonts and 10 different character
sizes. The list of features also includes ver-
tical printing, a 4K-byte text-memory buffer
for editing short documents, and a com-
mand mode for composing lines and
figures. The printer can also access the com-
mand mode, letting you write simple pro-
grams to generate printed graphics.
The Penwriter is certainly portable. It can
run on batteries, and it measures 14!^ by
10'/2 by 2'/2 inches and weighs slightly less
than 6 pounds (without batteries). A plastic
dust cover holds additional pen sets.
The Penwriter uses water-based ballpoint
pens to print. Panasonic rates the life of
each pen at approximately 40,000 charac-
ters. Characters are not as well formed as
they are with daisy-wheel printers, however;
many of the characters have a dot-matrix
appearance, but the printing method does
allow a variety of fonts, character sizes, and
graphics.
At first glance, the top of the unit appears
daunting. The keyboard contains a number
of nonstandard keys, and many switches
and buttons complicate its appearance. In
truth, however, 1 must admit that 1 have long
disliked DIP (dual in-line package) switches;
I prefer to have quick access to every option.
In the upper right-hand area of the key-
board are eight switches and a color-change
button. Pressing the color button rotates
the pen holder one stage through the cycle
of black-red-green-blue. You can set the
eight switches for interesting combinations
Ion r. Edwards is a technical editor of printing modes and character fonts, sizes,
for byte. He can be contacted at and shapes. You can, for example, choose
pob 372. Hancock, nh 03449 between italics and a "normal font," select
bold type or underlining, alter the horizon-
tal or vertical size of individual characters
(see figure 1), change the line spacing, select
one of two available character sets, type or
draw in direct mode, or set up the Penwriter
as a printer.
Above the keyboard and to the left are
five graphics keys (see photo 1). The
column-layout function frames information
within boxes. Like all the graph functions,
however, it does not work in conjunction
with software. Rather, you must set up the
columns either in direct-printing (DP) mode
or in line-by-line (LL) mode. This is perhaps
the most severe limitation of the "printer,"
since the other charts, while able to use
data from any other type of graph, are
limited to 12 data entries. The appearance
of the graphs is impressive (see figure 2).
They are available in three sizes, with selec-
tive hatching and color, and there's a data-
editing feature, but you may miss the abili-
ty to tie the functions to spreadsheets.
The keyboard contains several keys com-
mon to typewriters but not to computers.
These keys handle the setting and releas-
ing of tabs and margins. The character-set
selector introduces a range of additional
characters, including international symbols.
Five accent symbols are designated as dead
keys, facilitating their use with other
characters. There is. however, no easy way
to use these additional keys and features
in the printer mode.
As a Typewriter
As an electronic typewriter, the Penwriter
has four modes. In DP mode, it immediate-
ly prints the keys that you press. You can
set the margins, use the tab, backspace to
move the carriage, and use the margin
release to pass the right margin. As with
some typewriters, a buzzer sounds to in-
dicate the approaching right margin. The
Penwriter can center text, flush text against
the right margin, and produce overlays for
very distinctive printing (see figure 3).
[continued)
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 351
REVIEW: PANASONIC PEN WRITER
SPACING
HORIZONTAL
1
2
3
sf 1
abcdefg
sl Id cz cL
a. 1=3 cz;
ERTIC)
abcdefg
abed
abc
3
JCG
letcj
abc
abc .
Figure 1 : Two of the switches on the Penwriter keyboard control the horizontal
and vertical sizes of the characters. The standard line has about 10 characters per
inch. Note that the linefeed space is proportional to the vertical size of the
character. Other switches change the print color, select among boldface, underlining,
and italics, set the line spacing, and put the Penwriter into its printer mode.
Photo I: The Penwriter '$ five graphics keys are used for pie charts, bar charts, line
graphs, radar graphs, and column layout.
In LL mode, characters are dis-
played on the 24-character-wide
liquid-crystal display (LCD) before they
are printed. You can edit the text ap-
pearing on the screen with the Back-
space or the Forward key. The Delete
key erases characters under the
screen cursor. You can print vertical-
ly in both modes by pressing Code
and the V key. When printing vertical-
ly, the space bar and the Reverse In-
dex, Index, Return, and Backspace
keys adjust the paper, but you cannot
set the top margin and tabs.
The command mode accepts and
executes graphics commands. You
can move the pen; establish an origin;
draw lines, dashes, axes, and circles;
and set the character size, color, and
rotation. You can generate graphics
immediately or use the printer, a
method that vastly enhances the
graphics potential of the Penwriter.
One control code (12 hexadecimal)
puts the printer into command mode.
I was therefore able to use the BASIC
LPRINT command to change color,
draw circles, and rotate characters.
Using several examples in the docu-
mentation as a guide, I wrote a short
BASIC program (see listing 1) that
generates figure 4. I also printed
some letterheads.
Pressing the Mode In/Out key
enables the fourth mode, text mem-
ory. In this mode, the Penwriter can
store up to 3310 characters in its
memory; you can divide the work
space into nine phrase memories.
Special keys print the text, search for
specified words, delete the contents
of a phrase, check the amount of
memory available, and shift the cur-
sor left, right, and up or down one
line. You can set margins before or
after entering text. There is an auto-
matic word-wrap feature.
You can use the Penwriter with bat-
teries or with an external AC power
adapter that comes with the unit but
does not neatly tuck away inside the
dust cover. When the batteries are
weak, the LCD begins to flash. With
batteries in, or if the AC adapter is
continually connected, text memory,
graphics data, RS-232C transmission
(continued)
352 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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. . . FLAGSTAFF ENGINEERING
AT A GLANCE
Name
Panasonic 4-Color Graphic
Penwriter
Type
Electronic typewriter, graph
maker, and printer
Manufacturer
Panasonic
One Panasonic Way
Secaucus, NJ 07094
(201) 348-7000
Size
14V2 by 10 1 /2 by 2Vz inches
Features
Four water-based ballpoint
pens (each has
40,000-character capacity),
24-character LCD, five
graphics packages, Courier
and italic fonts, boldface,
underlining, variable character
size, 13 graphics commands,
4K-byte memory buffer,
RS-232C interface (receive-
only), battery option, 80
characters per line
Documentation
64-page user's manual
Price
$350
PRINT SPEED (CHARACTERS/SEC)
LIST PRICE (SIC
—
0)
V////////////)
20 40 60 80 100 2 4 6 8
| PANASONIC PENWRITER |] EPSON RX-80 V//A GEMINI -IPX
This
is
the
Panasonic
4-C
olor
Graphic
Penwri
This
is
the
Epson
RX
-80
in emphasiz
ed
mod
This
i s
the
Star
Gemi ni -
-10X
This is
tr
e St
The Panasonic 4-Color Graphic Penwriter is ing how long it took the machines to print the
compared with the Epson RX-80 and the Star Shannon test (573 characters; see "The Art of
Micronics Gemini 10-X in emphasized mode. Benchmarking Printers" by Sergio Mello-Grand
The pitch for all printers is 10 characters per in the February 1984 BYTE, page 193). The
inch. The print speeds were determined by tim- prices shown are list prices.
354
IYTE • DECEMBER 1985
REVIEW: PANASONIC PEN WRITER
format, margins, and tab-setting posi-
tions remain in memory. As an extra
feature for forgetful battery users, the
Penwriter automatically switches off
(without harming text memory, etc.)
when there has been no input for
about 10 minutes. This does not apply
when you use the Penwriter as a
printer.
Loading paper is a relatively
straightforward procedure. Insert the
paper into the paper channel, press
the Insert key. and the paper moves
forward automatically. I miss not hav-
ing a platen knob to move the paper,
however, and I found the paper-
release lever, which must be released
to adjust the paper, flimsy and far too
tiny. It is almost impossible to insert
the paper manually by releasing the
lever and maneuvering the paper
through; you must follow the
directions.
The sheet feeder is not intended for
continuous paper, and there is no op-
tional tractor-feed mechanism. It
would not be easy to use continuous
paper. And in ordinary use, metal
paper guides that press against the
platen tend to perforate the left and
right edges of even the thickest paper,
distracting from the otherwise fine ap-
pearance of the printed output.
As a Printer
I hooked the printer to the serial port
of an IBM Personal Computer. Before
going on line, the printer can accept
new values for transmission rate, data
length, and automatic linefeed. Once
set. the values become defaults. You
can also set the switches for color,
boldface, underlining, italics, and
character size. Alternatively, you can
use underlining, boldface, and italics
by calling upon the appropriate
escape functions cited in the manual.
Panasonic claims a printing speed for
the Penwriter of 6.5 characters per
second (cps). However, using the
Shannon test (see "The Art of Bench-
marking Printers" by Sergio Mello-
Grand in the February 1984 BYTE,
page 193), I recorded the speed at 5.7
cps. Printing in boldface or with larger
characters visibly slows the machine.
[continued)
Figure 2: A comparative line graph.
Figure 3: The Penwriter supports overlay printing in its direct-printing mode.
Figure 4: An example of Penwriter graphics.
DECEMBER
IYTE 355
REVIEW: PANASONIC PEN WRITER
Listing 1: This program uses the printer in command mode to produce figure 4.
10 LPRINT CHR$(18):REM enter command mode
20 LPRINT "r500,0:i":REM initialize origin
30 LPRINT "c3:y150:c2:y145:c1:y140":REM draw circles
35 LPRINT "r-75,75":REM relative move from origin
40 FOR X = TO 3
50 LPRINT "q";X:REM print in four directions
60 LPRINT
70 LPRINT
80 LPRINT
90 NEXT X
'c1:s1,1
'c2:s2,2
c3:s3,3
pabc"
pdef"
P9"
I recorded the slowest operation,
boldface printing of characters three
times the standard width and height,
at 0.8 cps.
Cables are available to connect the
printer to a serial port on an IBM PC,
to the superserial card on the Apple,
to the VICI01 1 A on a Commodore, or
to the built-in serial port of the
Panasonic Sr. Partner RL-H7000.
There is no optional parallel port. The
RS-232C port is receive-only: you can-
not use the Penwriter as a dumb ter-
minal. Unfortunately, there is no pro-
vision to use the 4K-byte buffer as a
spooler.
Documentation
The manual is excellent. Careful,
diagramed instructions cover every
aspect of use. There are instructions
for replacing batteries and pens and
for inserting paper: the manual ex-
plains every special key, switch, and
printing mode. A section on use as a
printer includes pen assignments and
control codes.
Summary
I enjoyed working with the 4-Color
Graphic Penwriter. It combines versa-
tility with a good price, though 1 re-
main concerned that some of the
plastic components, including the
paper guide and the transparent
cover over the carriage, are too fragile
to hold up under heavy use. I was also
distracted by the perforation of the
margins. Still, the Penwriter is a good
value for people who require its ver-
satility: One moment it's a printer, the
next an electric typewriter with mem-
ory, and then a fancy printer of graphs
and graphics. ■
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356 BYTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry I83
TELECOMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERS
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358 BYTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 61
REVIEW FEEDBACK
Osborne 3
I'd like to bring up some features of the
Osborne 3 computer not covered by
Donna Osgood in her review (September,
page 284] and to emphasize others that
I feel were covered too briefly. I have
owned my Osborne 3 for seven months
and have explored many of its limitations
and advantages.
I wanted a machine that could support
compilers for all the current languages,
which meant I needed MS-DOS. I also
craved the background print spooler and
easy 1200-bps modem support. IBM
media compatibility was a feature I
desired so I could borrow one of the PC
ATs at work for my large jobs. Above all,
I wanted to avoid planned obsolescence.
Portability was indicated, so 1 also put bat-
tery operation on the wish list. The
Osborne 3 was the only machine on the
market that met a majority of the criteria
on my list.
I purchased my machine with 512K bytes
of RAM, a nicad battery, and some free
software my dealer threw in. The disk
drives are very slow due largely to the lack
of a track-zero detector on the Panasonic
drives used in the machine; this neces-
sitates a lot of grinding during disk access.
So the first piece of software 1 obtained
was a RAM-disk utility— end of that
problem.
As I dislike editors that use the screen
for anything but text, 1 haven't experi-
enced the difficulty Osgood discussed in
her article. She did neglect to mention the
Osborne's auto-cursor mode. In this mode,
the 24-line logical screen is auto-scrolled
onto the 16-line Osborne LCD so the cur-
sor is always visible. The fast repeat speed
of the keys makes it easy to zip the cur-
sor about to see any part of the screen.
Possibly the most unique feature of this
machine does not appear in any manual.
Since the Osborne runs on any voltage be-
tween 12 and 15 volts, I bought a power
connector to match the Osborne's, a
cigarette lighter plug, and 20 feet of heavy-
gauge wire. I can compute anywhere I can
drive my car without depleting the
Osborne's on-board battery.
Osgood properly emphasized the limita-
tions of the Osborne LCD. While vastly
better than the Data General/One or
Kaypro 2000 displays, the contrast is still
weak in normal room lighting. This is
readily improved with strong over-the-
shoulder lighting. The contrast is then en-
tirely acceptable, and I have experienced
no eyestrain after lengthy sessions at the
machine.
I can easily carry my entire setup in a
tote bag, including a tub of 50 disks. My
projects on the machine include a quick-
and-dirty database program written in Pro-
log for my Naval Reserve unit, a full rela-
tional database system with query lan-
guage written in C, a set of MS-DOS utili-
ties in C, and the design of an EMACS-like
editor system to be written in either
muLISP or IQLISP. When Turbo Pascal ar-
rives, I'll probably finish some of the proj-
ects left over from my p-System Apple.
Last of all, I'd like to address the in-
evitable questions about the superiority
of the Morrow Pivot and Zenith machines.
They are better; for more than double the
price, they had better be. And they cer-
tainly are not anywhere near double the
machine.
Robert W. Cunningham
San Diego, CA
Paradise Card
1 am writing in response to Harry Krause's
review of the Paradise Modular Graphics
Card (September, page 321). We use the
card on IBM PCs with Princeton Graphic
Systems MAX-12 amber monitors. We are
unable to run programs such as Display-
Write 2 that default to color mode when
a color card is used. Although we turn the
contrast and brightness knobs to full in-
tensity, many of the shades representing
colors are too dim to be easily read. The
MAX-12 has no internal adjustment for in-
tensity. We do not have this problem on
IBM monochrome monitors because they
have sufficient brightness control to make
all shades easily readable.
We have tried using the MODE BW com-
mand at the operating-system level prior
to running the application programs. This
does not solve the problem because it
seems that the MODE command operates
only on the composite signal produced by
the color card, not the RGB signal.
We welcome suggestions from readers
on how to solve the problem. Unless a
solution is found, I suggest that users con-
sidering purchasing the Paradise Modular
Graphics Card first test the card on their
systems, using a program that produces
text in several colors.
Jay Francis
Colorado Springs, CO
Juki 6100
In response to David Lewiston's letter on
the Juki 6100 (August, page 286), I would
like to say that I have been using a Juki
6100 for over a year now. The printer has
seen fairly heavy use. My setup includes
a tractor feed. I have not had the prob-
lems that Lewiston describes.
I do have some suggestions based on
experience. For the sticking ribbon prob-
lem, the only IBM-style ribbons that don't
stick are the pink-leader'single-strike fila-
ment ribbons. The orange-leader ribbons
and blue-leader multistrike correctable
carbon-film ribbons jam within 8 to 10
pages. While the yellow-leader ribbons
don't jam quite that fast, they do shed, so
you get tiny black specks all over the
paper while the letters fall off the page.
I've heard reports that the noncorrecting
blue-leader multistrike fabric ribbons also
work, but 1 don't know that from my own
experience.
I've run into the take-up problem to an
extent. The solution seems to be to wind
the ribbon up to the point where the
colored leader has gone into the cartridge.
Sometimes it does hang up if the leader
isn't all the way inside the reel. (Of course,
using a ribbon that tends to jam anyway
would exacerbate this.)
I don't know what to say about the ir-
regular spacing or the crooked lines. I sug-
gest checking the software for the spac-
ing problem. I had some weird results until
I edited my word processor's printer driver
a bit. For the slanting lines, try clamping
the paper onto the back of the tractor-
drive unit as well as the front.
James D. Macdonald
Miami, FLU
REVIEW FEEDBACK is a column of readers let-
ters. We welcome responses that support or challenge
BYTE reviews. Send letters to Review Feedback.
BYTE Publications. POB 372. Hancock. NH
03449. Name and address must be on all letters.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 359
\
\
EVTE
Kernel
Computing at Chaos Manor:
The European Connection
by \erry Poumelle 363
Chaos Manor Mail
conducted by ]erry Pournelle 383
BYTE U.K.:
The Torch Triple X
by Dick Pountain 385
BYTE Japan:
Computing in Taiwan
by William M. Raike 397
According to Webster: Microcomputer
Color Graphics-Observations
by Bruce Webster 405
Circuit Cellar Feedback
conducted by Steve Ciarcia 420
IERRY AND HIS WIFE recently left Chaos Manor to take a trip to Europe.
It proved to be a working vacation because he visited locations to be found
in his next novel. But he didn't entirely forget computers, being able to spend
a few days at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology— one of the important
centers of the computer revolution. This month's column describes some of
the projects taking place there.
In BYTE U.K., Dick describes the new Torch Triple X— a low-cost personal
computer that runs UNIX System V and is driven by Motorola's 68010. Dick
claims that the Torch Triple X is aimed at the AT&T market (although the Torch
is priced lower), but Dick believes Torch may get its most serious competition
from Commodore's Amiga.
In July Bill Raike visited Taiwan, where he attended the Computex '85 com-
puter show and checked out the software piracy problem in that country. In
this month's BYTE japan column he discusses several of the products he saw
at the show; most of them are IBM PC, PC XT, or PC AT clones. He also
describes a pirate software shop he found in Taiwan.
Bruce Webster's column deals almost entirely with the subject of color
graphics on microcomputers. He gives a brief survey of the field, describing
the graphics systems on some of the popular computers. This includes his
opinion on whether or not Apple should come out with a color Macintosh.
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 361
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COMPUTING
AT CHAOS MANOR
The European Connection
ETH
Lilith
Modems
Percy
Starlet
Purple Computing
Terminals
by Jerry Pournelle
ferry Pournelle holds a doctorate in
psychology and is a science-fiction
writer who also earns a comfortable
living writing about computers
present and future.
I'm starting this in Graz, a city I never
even heard of until a few weeks ago.
It's in the Steiermark district of
southern Austria and is the location of
AIMS, the American Institute of Musical
Studies. AIMS is a nonprofit organization
operating out of Dallas, Texas, that trains
American singers for careers in European
opera houses, and a very good job it does.
My next novel involves intrigue, high tech,
and an American coloratura soprano, so
this is a working vacation.
We drove in driving rains to Graz from
Liechtenstein, a country no one but stamp
collectors knew about until a few years ago.
It is now a center of high-tech enterprises
and, incidentally, the third or fourth
wealthiest country per capita in the world:
a great location for parts of my novel. The
rainstorm, it turned out, was one of the
worst they'd had in 20 years. It washed out
many of the roads we wanted to take, as
well as flooding much of Innsbruck and
Salzburg. Getting to Graz was an adventure
in itself. After Graz we go to Vienna, then
Salzburg, then on a general tour of the Tirol.
If all this sounds like 1 didn't do much
computing at Chaos Manor this month,
you're right; even so there's plenty to
report. As part of our travels, I managed to
spend a couple of days in Zurich, Switzer-
land, at the Eidgenossische Technische
Hochschule, otherwise known as ETH, the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Hochschule sounds like "high school," but
don't let that fool you. Einstein taught at
ETH; it corresponds closely to MIT or
Caltech. Like MIT, ETH has a number of
departments. The one of particular interest
to me is the Institut fur Informatik, where
Professor Niklaus Wirth invented both
Pascal and Modula-2.
We were fortunate to be at ETH with Dr.
Richard Ohran, whom I've mentioned
before in this column. Richard is a former
member of the faculty at ETH who now runs
the Modula Research Institute, a nonprofit
organization founded to help ETH Infor-
matik distribute programs and other public-
domain technologies developed by the
faculty and students. He also heads the
Modula Corporation, a for-profit company
that sells a really excellent Modula-2 com-
piler for the Macintosh. The Modula-2
language is in the public domain, as are most
ETH research results; but particular imple-
mentations of ETH's work, including
Modula-2, are developed and sold by
private companies. Ohran's Modula Cor-
poration also manufactures the Lilith
computer.
Richard is a good man to have with you
on a visit to ETH. Not only did he get his
doctorate (with a silver medal) there, but in
his earlier stay he was the hardware
member of the team that designed the
Lilith; now his Modula Corporation in Utah
makes all the Liliths used at ETH. They have
about 100 of them and want more.
The Lilith is an interesting machine. It was
designed to "speak" Modula-2 and use the
Modula operating system. This works bet-
ter than I would have believed. The Lilith
compiles and executes Modula-2 programs
faster than most machines can run assem-
bly language. The Modula-2 team designed
the Lilith that way. The result is unique
among higher-level languages: program-
mers using the Lilith can produce hundreds
of lines of bug-free Modula-2 code, corre-
sponding to thousands of lines of assembly-
language code, in astonishingly short times.
If Modula-2 becomes as important a com-
puter language as I think it will, there should
be considerable interest in the Lilith; it's
hard to conceive of a better system for de-
veloping Modula-2 programs.
Up to now, use of the Lilith has been con-
fined largely to Modula-2 enthusiasts and
people at ETH. Not many have been manu-
factured, and they've been thought too
costly for most software developers.
That view may be mistaken. If you intend
to write really large programs so that a
number of programmers have to work to-
(continued)
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 363
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CHAOS MANOR
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gether, Modula-2 may well be the lan-
guage of choice. It's structured to
make it simple to interface a number
of programmer efforts with minimum
problems; and the Lilith is a nearly
ideal programming tool for producing
Modula-2 code.
Ohran's Modula Corporation is go-
ing to make it easier to get a Lilith.
About the time you read this, it in-
tends to market a version of the Lilith
that will work in conjunction with an
IBM PC, using the PC's disks, key-
board, and screen. 1 haven't seen that
work yet. I have had a Lilith off and
on for more than a year, and it's one
of the best software-development
tools I've ever had access to. I can
write Modula-2 code with the Lilith,
then transfer it to the PC by recom-
piling with the Logitech compiler; the
result works fine unless I've used the
Lilith's special display capability.
For quick-and-dirty programs, 1 still
use Digital Research's Compiling
CBASIC because it's transportable
across 8- and 16-bit machines, and 1
have a pretty good library of CBASIC
routines; but I suspect that one day
I will convert all my CBASIC stuff to
Modula-2. It's not that hard to do.
CBASIC is a well-structured language,
particularly if you use the "declare"
toggle that tells the compiler to treat
an undeclared variable as an error. A
couple of years ago I'd have thought
anyone who deliberately required de-
claring all variables before using them
was crazy, and I probably even said
something that silly in print. Ah well,
live and learn.
Anyway, I'm hoping that coupling a
Lilith system with a PC will make both
the Lilith and Modula-2 more wide-
spread and available. ETH has devel-
oped some really interesting pro-
grams for the Lilith. As I've said
before, we won't see software prices
really tumble until lots of people have
good programming environments to
work in, and there are as many peo-
ple trying to write big programs as
there are would-be authors of books.
Getting the Lilith plus the ETH devel-
opment approach plus Modula-2 into
the hands of U.S. hackers may have a
(continued)
364 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
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CHAOS MANOR
The Modula system
is harder to learn
than Macintosh's,
but easier to use
once you've learned it.
spectacular effect on the computer
revolution.
32016 Systems
Another ETH project under Niklaus
Wirth's direction is porting the
Modula operating system (which the
Lilith runs directly) over to computers
using the National Semiconductor
32016 chip. The Modula operating
system has a number of similarities to
the Macintosh system. (No coin-
cidence: both grew out of Alan Kay's
work at Xerox. Some time ago, Wirth
spent a year's sabbatical at Xerox's
Palo Alto Research Center, and he was
there again this summer.) The Modula
system is somewhat harder to learn
than Macintosh's, but in my judgment
a lot easier to use once you've
learned it. Anyway, ETH has a work-
ing experimental Modula system for
a 32016 computer.
The 32016 runs at 10 megahertz
(MHz), compared to the 6-MHz chips
in the Lilith. Hans Eberle, Wirth's assis-
tant for this project, said that he was
"surprised that the 32016 is only
slightly less fast than the Lilith."
1 raised an eyebrow at this. Later,
while having dinner with Dr. Ohran, I
asked him how this could be. After all,
the 32016 runs almost as fast as the
2901 chips in the Lilith.
According to Ohran, it's a matter of
design philosophy. The Lilith was in-
tended to run Modula-2. Other com-
puters have to worry about underflow
and overflow. There are no such error
checks in the Lilith, just as there are
no checks for stack overflow. Not only
does the Lilith run Modula-2, it runs
nothing else: there is no assembler, or,
put another way, the Modula-2 com-
piler is the Lilith's assembler. Overflow
and stack-explosion checks have been
shifted to the compiler so that pro-
grammers need not keep track of
such administrivia.
Moreover, the Lilith's 2901 chip has
an obscure data path that gives I/O
(input/output) operations direct ac-
cess to the stack without going
through the ALU (arithmetic logic
unit). The Lilith fetches instructions
about five times faster than any other
machine. The result is amazing speed.
According to Ohran, since all ma-
chines have to fetch instructions, the
others have to achieve nearly an order
of magnitude speed improvement just
to keep up with the Lilith.
1 suppose I believe this, but 1 have
no way of checking it out. Steve Gar-
cia "speaks solder"; hardware's not
my specialty. I do know that I've seen
the Lilith do amazing things at blind-
ing speeds, and everyone at ETH
prefers the Lilith to just about any-
thing else. Undergraduates in the In-
stitut fur Informatik begin with the
Apple II and Macintosh: they gradu-
ate to the Lilith when they have signifi-
cant project work to do. There are
also VAXes and other minicomputers
and mainframe machines at ETH; but
the Lilith is everyone's favorite.
Anyway, the 32016 machine running
Modula-2 is almost as fast as the Lilith
and has better graphics control.
They're now building a color Lilith
around the 32016.
Some Standard Problems
ETH is big on both classics and
acronyms: the new 32016 machine
will be known as CERES, which stands
for "computing engine for research,
engineering and science." The bus
structure is, according to Eberle,
"close to the 32016 and not standard.
We need a bus that supports the ar-
chitecture of the processor. Industry
must worry about standards. It is not
the concern of ETH."
This pretty well echoes Professor
Wirth's often-expressed attitude. ETH
has a dual-purpose mission, to work
at the frontiers of knowledge and to
train students to understand the latest
developments in technology. Wirth's
view is that ETH cannot become dis-
tracted by the requirement to make
its technological achievements con-
form to industry's needs. It is enough
that ETH develop generic technolo-
gies; industry must do the rest.
I can understand this view, and I
even agree that academics shouldn't
need to do industry's work; but some-
times the results are less than op-
timum. In the long run. the best tech-
nology generally wins out. In the short
run, though, there can be unfortunate
results: witness the proliferation of
Pascal dialects and the delays in de-
veloping really practical implementa-
tions of Modula-2. I'm impressed with
what ETH has done with Modula-2
and the Lilith, and I'm in a hurry to
see these concepts take their rightful
place in the computer revolution.
The good news is that methods for
disseminating new developments at
ETH are being perfected, such as
Wirth's new one-pass Modula-2 com-
piler that compiles itself in less than
five minutes. In the future, it shouldn't
take so long to get new developments
out of the ivory tower— actually it's
granite, but you get the idea— and into
the hands of users.
Modula-2 is catching on. Philippe
Kahn, whose Turbo Pascal has be-
come something of a standard— they
even use it at ETH, where one medical
database program for the IBM PC is
3000 lines of Turbo Pascal— has prom-
ised Turbo Modula-2 for the PC Real
Soon Now, and that should help get
some of ETH's programs out to BYTE
readers. There are good Modula-2
compilers and Modula operating
systems for the Stride family of
68000-based computers. Modula Cor-
poration has MacModula-2. It can't be
long before U.S. hackers get some of
ETH's marvels in shape for the rest of
us.
Music and Go
Most technical institutes require a
senior thesis project for graduation.
At ETH this can result in significant
programs. I didn't have time to look
at all of the ETH projects— most of the
students weren't there anyway, it be-
{continued)
366 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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CHAOS MANOR
ing summer— but Hans Hinterberger,
the Informatik administrator, arranged
for me to see some fascinating ones.
The first was a system in which you
can play a musical piece on a stan-
dard-keyboard music synthesizer,
hearing it as you play it, and then get
a written transcription in musical nota-
tion. The program also separates
voices and does transpositions, which
are often necessary but very tedious
musical chores. All this appears on
the Lilith's screen; then you can use
the mouse to change the notes, move
things around, and otherwise fuss
with the score, after which the final
result comes out as hard copy from
a laser printer.
This program hasn't been perfected,
but it will be published when it's
done; the source code should be
available from the Modula Research
Institute sometime in 1986. 1 hope U.S.
hackers will pick it up where the ETH
faculty and students leave it because
there's a crying need for computer
assistance for composers.
My friend Robert Bloch (he's often
introduced as RobertBlochauthorof-
Psycho, all one word) has the rights to
do an opera based on The Phantom of
the Opera. We have introduced him to
Dr. Robert Challs, professor of music
at Cal State Northridge and composer
of The Thirteen Clocks, based on lames
Thurber's modern classic. By me
Challs is pretty good; I generally can't
stand modern opera, but I like The
Thirteen Clocks. Anyway we're hoping
that Bloch and Challs can do Phantom
together. Alas, the expenses of sim-
ply getting an opera onto paper, sep-
arated into parts with copies for
singers and orchestra and conductor,
can be staggering. Computers make
a writer's life much easier by taking
much of the work and expense out of
producing manuscripts; I'm sure the
little beasts will have just as profound
an effect in the music field.
Another project that fascinates me
is a program to help people who play
go. Go is a game with only three rules;
you can learn it in five minutes. Play-
ing it well, on the other hand, can take
a lifetime; it's much more complex
than chess.
There is no program that can play
a passable game of go. Even
mediocre human players invariably
win unless the computer is given an
enormous handicap. The Japanese
hope to produce a go program as
part of the Fifth Generation Computer
Project, but no one has seen any
results yet.
Winning at go requires an apprecia-
tion of grand strategy, and the rela-
tionships between widely separated
activities on the go board are far too
subtle to be reduced to rules. How-
{conlinued)
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 369
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370 BYTE • DECEMBER I98?
Inquiry 408
CHAOS MANOR
ever, no matter how good you are at
go strategy, you must also master the
game's tactics, which aren't easy.
Mastering them can be tedious. For-
tunately, those can be reduced to rules
that a computer can learn.
At ETH, Anders Kierulf and lurg
Nievergelt have developed what they
call a smart go board that has many
ways to help go players. It can play
joseki which are tactical openings
played in one corner. It can analyze
certain tactical situations, including
ladders. Best of all, it can record an en-
tire game as played; then in the replay
allow you to do variations and return
to the actual position after you in-
vestigate alternatives to the real
moves. Go has dozens of pieces, all
just alike, scattered across the board.
The exact position of each and the
exact sequence of play are usually
critical to the outcome of the game;
thus, recording and replaying classic
games has always involved a lot of
tedious bookkeeping. That capability
alone makes the ETH smart go board
important.
Both the music and go programs
are written in Modula-2. They're de-
signed for the Lilith. 1 don't know how
hard it will be to recompile them for
the PC or Macintosh. Anyway, it's
pretty certain that Ohran will have ver-
sions for his PC-Lilith combination
when it comes out.
Music lovers and go players unite:
you have nothing to lose but some
drudge work. . .
Databases
1 had a busy time at ETH; after watch-
ing the go program (and getting a
promise that I'll have a copy for my
Lilith Real Soon Now). I met Andreas
Diener. a graduate assistant in the
group headed by Professor Carl
August Zehnder. They have been in-
vestigating the implications of having
databases available at workstations
and developing software that allows
selective access and security. For ex-
ample, you cannot allow casual users
access to personnel data; but you
might want them to be able to get
statistical information about all
[continued]
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Inquiry 76
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 371
Inquiry 296
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Locksmith and Locksmith/PC are registered trademarks of Alpha Logic Business Systems, Inc.
372 BYTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 4 1 1
Inquiry 207
CHAOS MANOR
employees. Of course, a sufficiently
clever hacker may be able to ask
questions that look as if they're ask-
ing for collective data but that actually
apply to only one employee, so you
want your system to defeat those at-
tempts also.
Zehnder's group has recently re-
leased LIDAS (Lilith database system),
which includes Modula-R. a database-
language extension of Modula-2. The
idea is to come up with something
compatible with the Lilith and the
Modula-2 compiler but adapted to
database problems.
One of Wirth's least-known books is
also one of his best: it has the unlike-
ly title Data Structures + Algorithms =
Programs. The database-programming
work at ETH reminded me of that
book; probably no coincidence.
Part of Diener's Ph.D. thesis is work
on GAMBIT (1 told you they're big on
acronyms), a database-definition tool.
LIDAS and GAMBIT are "completed
but not exactly commercial," meaning
that in keeping with their general
philosophy. ETH declines to take re-
sponsibility for making these remark-
able tools available to the average
user; you can get them from ETH for
a nominal fee, but it will be some
commercial developer's task to
reduce them to a publishable
package.
I'm sure that will happen. What I
saw at ETH was impressive. Here are
a bunch of networked machines with
what appears to be a common data-
base. Nonprivileged users can work
with the database, adding to it and
getting information from it, and never
even suspect that there are layers of
information to which they don't have
access. Moreover, you can keep
private files whose existence is
unknown to other users. The idea is
to present private and shared data in
an integrated way; and what ETH has
done so far beats anything I've ever
seen for either micros or minis.
Much of the work at ETH is done
in English (even though English is not
one of the four official Swiss lan-
guages), and Diener's thesis will be
written in English and will eventually
{continued)
A Graphic
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HARRIS
Inquiry 161
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 373
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374 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 137
Inquiry 208
CHAOS MANOR
be available with source code through
the Modula Research Institute.
And Yet More
There's a lot more happening at ETH.
Jurg Nievergelt, Andrea Ventura, and
Hans Hinterberger have done some
excellent work on using computers to
aid in computer science education.
Carlo Muller's diploma thesis was
Modula-Prolog. Others have cooper-
ated to make it a nearly complete Pro-
log interpreter (see the theme section
of the August BYTE beginning on
page 148 for discussions of Prolog),
which is written in Modula-2 and is
now available for the Lilith, VAXes,
and MS-DOS machines. Work on data-
bases, networking, graphics, and man-
machine interfacing continues. ETH is
one of the important centers of the
computer revolution, and we'll con-
tinue to hear lots more about it.
Modem Troubles
I've become addicted to the BYTE In-
formation Exchange, otherwise
known as BIX; the thought of a month
in Europe without a single BIX fix was
upsetting. In my last week back home
at Chaos Manor. I tried a number of
approaches to ensure overseas com-
munications. Alas, they all came to
naught.
Europeans do things differently
from the way we do. In the U.S.. we
operate on credit. Tymnet, for exam-
ple, is billed to the number you make
contact with; the center you reach
then bills you, generally through a
credit card. In Europe, though, you
have to pay in advance. Many post of-
fices in Europe have facilities for con-
necting you to a European Tymnet
gate. You go to the post office, pay
your money, and are put into a small
booth to use the network; then you
get back anything you've overpaid.
Alas, most European networks
operate at 300 baud— and Europe's
300-baud modems are not compati-
ble with American modems. Your
Tandy Model 100, or the little outside
modem that attaches to the NEC
PC-8201, won't work through Euro-
pean telephones. You can, I am told,
{continued)
OSay,
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Inquiry 162
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 375
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376 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 407
Inquiry 404
CHAOS MANOR
rent a Tandy Model 100 that will chew
European current and communicate
at 300 baud, but so far we haven't
been anywhere 1 could do that.
European 1200-baud systems are
the same as ours; and it is possible
to connect to a U.S. 1200-baud
modem by a direct call to the U.S.
Alas, that too has its problems. For
one thing, you generally want to go
to the post office to make the call.
European hotels routinely add about
a 400-percent surcharge to overseas
calls. (In Vienna, two calls to BYTE and
one to California came to $87 U.S.,
and they weren't long calls.)
Worse, though, is finding a portable
computer with a 1200-baud modem.
For some time now I have carried
Percy, the NEC PC-8201. on most of
my trips, and I've become very fond
of him; but there is no 1200-baud
modem for Percy. At NCC in Chicago
this year, I met some NEC officials
who were greatly cooperative about
getting me one of the NEC PC-8401
Starlet machines. Starlet comes with
an internal 300-baud modem, and
there is an external 1200-baud
modem available. Alas, the 1200-baud
modem does not run on batteries!
You have to plug it into 100-volt
60-cycle current. Europe doesn't use
100-volt 60-cycle current, and 1 was
unable to get a reliable power con-
verter. The Starlet and its modem
stayed behind after all.
ETH's Institut fur Informatik offered
to get me connected to BIX. and I
eagerly accepted; then they found out
that no one in the Institut knew how
to do it. They called the Computing
Center, another branch of ETH, which
sent around a very friendly chap to
help me. It turns out that every ETH ter-
minal has the capability for connect-
ing to the outside world at 1 200 baud;
you only need a password. Thus. I got
a BIX fix courtesy of ETH; otherwise,
though, I've remained BlXless and will
until we swing through Zurich on our
way back to the Frankfurt airport.
Portability
The last time I was in Europe 1 carried
Adelle. the Otrona Attache luggable.
(continued)
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CHAOS MANOR
The Attache still works fine and has
a built-in converter to European
power, but it's just too darned heavy,
or so I thought as I was packing. It is
time, l told myself, to become truly
portable.
That, it turns out, is more easily said
than done. The HP HO is portable. I
have problems reading its screen, but
I could probably live with it. Alas, I
couldn't find a reliable way to re-
charge its batteries on European cur-
rent; at least, no one I managed to get
hold of at Hewlett-Packard could tell
me how I could safely do it. The HP
HO I have has about 70K bytes of
useful memory; hardly enough for a
month's trip, even if I didn't have to
worry about power and eyestrain.
That eliminated it.
The NEC PC-8401 Starlet was a pos-
sibility. The memory problem looked
severe at first, but then I found out
about Purple Computing's SideStar,
which is an external CMOS (com-
plementary metal-oxide semiconduc-
tor) RAM (random-access read/write
memory) disk that you can plug into
the Starlet. Carry two of those and
you've got lots of reliable memory. Fur-
thermore, it's easy to dump onto any
other machine when you return, since
the Starlet knows how to connect to
disks. Alas, the PC-8401 s screen is
even more difficult to read than the
HP HO's. I was about to bring the
Starlet anyway until 1 found that the
modem wouldn't be usable; that was
enough to decide against it. 1 am told
that by the time you read this, NEC
will have a greatly improved Starlet
available, with an easier-to-read
screen; but it wasn't available in late
July when we caught the plane.
I was getting a little desperate when
I found out about Purple Computing's
SideCar memory module for the
PC-8201. This plugs into the side of
the 8201 and provides four banks of
32K-byte memory. The 8201 already
has two internal 32K-byte banks, all
nonvolatile CMOS (low-current) mem-
ory backed up with lithium batteries.
In addition, I carried a couple of NEC
memory cartridges for Percy; the
result is that I've done both BYTE and
Popular Computing columns, kept my
notes, and written two chapters of a
novel. I still have plenty of memory
space left, and if I start running low,
I have the NEC cassette data recorder
in my luggage.
Percy's printer is a tiny little thermal
affair; it produces a long, skinny out-
put that looks like an adding-machine
tape. I'm sure the BYTE people don't
much appreciate it and wish I'd car-
ried one of the larger printers, but if
they saw my luggage, they'd sym-
pathize. The little NEC printer is a life-
saver.
Fair warning about the PC-8201: if
you get the printer, order spare paper
well in advance. NEC national head-
quarters had to move heaven and
earth to get several rolls to Los
Angeles on two days' notice. For
some reason, few NEC dealers stock
the paper. Secondly, both the NEC
printer and data recorder come with
lapanese batteries. Throw them away.
Don't even attempt to use them. They
won't hurt the printer, but if the data
recorder has low batteries, it can hang
up so badly you have to cold-start the
NEC PC-8201, and that loses all your
data files, including the one you were
trying to save.
Purple Computing sells internal
memory chips for the 8201 in addi-
tion to SideCar. If you get an 8201 —
and I'm so happy with mine that it will
remain as a truly portable backup no
matter what other machine I carry in
future— you'll want to deal with Purple.
In addition to slots for additional in-
ternal RAM (which you get from Pur-
ple), the 8201 has a slot for a ROM
(read-only memory) chip. The best
one I've seen for that is The Ultimate
ROM from Traveling Software. This
contains a number of interesting pro-
grams, including an idea processor
I've used with some success in draft-
ing this column. There's also a good
text formatter that works with the
TTXpress portable printer, also avail-
able from Traveling.
We've used Percy in hotels, in the
car, on airplanes, and even at dinner
at Schloss St. Rupert in Salzburg— our
fellow diners were extremely curious
about him. The only problem we've
{continued)
378 BYTE' DECEMBER
CHAIRMAN
OF THE BOARDS
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The Microlink 2400 can communicate twice as fast as
1200 bps modems. (It transmits a double-spaced
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munication means lower phone bills and increased
productivity. The modem can even redial busy numbers
until it gets through — freeing you for other tasks.
SOFTWARE COMPA
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The Microlink 2400 is CC1TT
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Microlink 2400 displays call status
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The modem's auto-answer feature
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What's more, a powerful equalizer assures
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CHAOS MANOR
had so far is that Mrs. Pournelle often
wants to use him the same time I do:
Percy is extremely easy to use. and
she learned about him in no time.
Next time she'll carry her own; Travel-
ing Software has a good deal on
8201s. and I've ordered her one.
Terminal Difficulties
My daughter's job keeps her traveling;
just now she's in Germany. Some time
ago she asked me for an all-purpose
computer she could use in various
countries. It happened that Viasyn
had just brought out the CompuPro
10, otherwise known in these columns
as Shirley. Dr. Godbout's people were
able to adapt it for European current,
and I could get it at a good price, so
over it went.
Viasyn didn't make terminals, so we
looked about for one that would work
in Europe and finally settled on a Tele-
Video, lenny was happy with it until
one day it stopped working and a
mysterious error appeared on the
screen. No manual and no employee
of TeleVideo seem able to explain that
error message. It happens about 10
seconds after the terminal is turned
on.
lenny is not very computer-experi-
enced, and trying to diagnose by in-
tercontinental telephone is a losing
proposition. When I got to her place
in Germany I did some tests: the first
was simply to pull the plug from the
TeleVideo to the CompuPro computer.
Sure enough, the mysterious error
message appeared anyway; so it
wasn't something like the baud rate or
a parity error.
The second thing I did was to con-
nect the PC-8201 in terminal mode to
the Shirley using the cable that
formerly connected the TeleVideo. We
booted Shirley. Everything worked
fine. WRITE. WordStar, and SuperCalc
all came up as usual. Of course,
Shirley wasn't expecting a display 8
lines by 40 characters in size, so things
looked a little odd, but otherwise it
was all right.
Alas, we've been unable to find any-
one in Germany who'll work on the
TeleVideo terminal, while sending it
back to the States costs money and
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requires complex paperwork. It
looked simpler to buy her a new
terminal.
I asked the people at ETH which ter-
minals (for European current) they
preferred for beginning students.
Seems they'd done a study that in-
dicated Zenith terminals give the most
bang for the buck, so long as you take
a little care in using them. There are
others that stand up to student abuse
a bit better, but for a small number
of users, they like Zenith.
We've always liked Zenith anyway.
When I get home I'll see what 1 can
do; at worst, there's a Zenith outlet in
Zurich. 1 can send them the money,
and maybe somebody can help with
the papers for getting it into Germany.
Meanwhile, score one more use for
Percy.
Winding Down
I'm finishing this in the Salzburg Hotel
at Zell am See, an Austrian resort
town on a lake so clear it rivals Tahoe.
There's a problem about the book
of the month: the only computer
book 1 have with me is my own Adven-
tures in Miaoland. Edward Luttwak's
Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (lohns
Hopkins University Press, 1976) has
been a fascinating travel companion
as we toured the old Roman forts and
bases, but that's a bit specialized.
Even as I write this, my wife is giggling
over Deadly Games, a novel about
modern Russia by emigres Edward
Topol and Friedrich Neznansky
(Berkeley, 1985), which I also enjoyed,
and there's even a little about the
primitive computing equipment avail-
able to the Moscow police; but 1 sup-
pose the real book of the month has
to be the August BYTE, which I stuffed
into my briefcase as I went out the
door. I have twice read it cover to
cover.
There's a lot to think about in the
August BYTE; but my main conclusion
is that it will be a while before the new
declarative languages take over from
the procedural programming lan-
guages we have today. Certainly
they're not going to have much of an
impact on the micro world until we
get implementations that work on our
machines. ETH's Modula-Prolog for
MS-DOS machines is just now becom-
ing available, so maybe that will get
interest going in the micro com-
munity.
Meanwhile, 1 can reflect on what I've
seen at ETH. When their work with
databases becomes widely available,
that will be one generic advance. That
3000-line Turbo Pascal program 1
mentioned earlier is an indexing sys-
tem for a videodisk of medical data.
At NCC in Chicago, I saw a number
of videodisk systems and new devel-
opments in CD (compact-disk) ROMs.
Electronically readable encyclopedias
380 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
CHAOS MANOR
are already on sale; next will be
technical books with inserted moving
illustrations accompanied by sound.
None of this is more than a couple of
years in the future— at least for hobby-
ists. The general public may have to
wait longer.
The micro revolution continues, and
we're right in the middle of it. I get to
see the future before it happens.
BYTE readers provide a continuous
stream of information and ideas. I
love it.
1 do apologize for getting so far
behind with my correspondence: my
staff reports that though I almost
caught up after the construction (hap-
pily finished), because of this vacation
Chaos Manor is once again filled with
archaeological layers of unanswered
mail. When I get home I'll read it all.
but realistically it's unlikely that I'll be
able to answer more than a tenth of it.
Fortunately, the micro revolution
provides solutions as well as prob-
lems: BIX gives me a fighting chance
to, if not keep up with corre-
spondence, at least not fall too far
behind. Now if I can just persuade
people to use BIX instead of the post
office. . .
A last-minute bottom line.
First, an apology. In October, I left
out the address for Don Castella of
Disks Plus, and that's not fair; Don has
done a lot of work setting me up an
Ampro Little Board system, and he
also knows a lot about Ciarcia's new
small system. I recommend Disks Plus
as a good source of inexpensive but
powerful integrated hardware/soft-
ware packages for writers.
Second, an observation. I've read
this over, and it's amazing how work-
ing on an 8 by 40 screen can affect
writing style; the sentences and
paragraphs are shorter and choppier
than what I usually write on my 16 by
64 system. When I discussed this with
BYTE Editor in Chief Phil Lemmons,
he wondered if Ogden Nash didn't
write on a 2 by 40 machine, while
historian Edward Gibbons used an 80
by 2000. . .
This working vacation has been just
what I needed, but I'm astonished at
how much I miss getting on line with
BIX and generally playing about with
small computers. 1 can hardly wait to
get back to Chaos Manor, where we
have new machines, new software,
and mounds of mail. Recall Ogden
Nash on sins of omission: "Wheel The
next round of unanswered letters is on
me. . ." ■
\erry Pournelle welcomes readers comments and
opionions. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope
to ]erry Pournelle, do BYTE Publications. POB
372, Hancock, NH 03449. Please put your ad-
dress on the letter as well as on the envelope. Due
to the high volume of letters, \erry cannot guarantee
a personal reply.
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DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 381
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CHAOS MANOR MAIL
Editor's note: Due to space limitations, we are
able to publish only a sampling of the great
amount o( mail jerry receives each month.
Yet More on Copy
Protection
Dear Jerry,
Since 1 am trying to make a living by sell-
ing my thoughts, I am in favor of copyright
laws that protect me from being ripped
off. And I just met a guy who specializes
in pirating programs. He told me he had
13 word processors, 10 spreadsheets, lots
of stuff like that, and that he hadn't paid
a dime for any of them. As near as I could
tell, he'd never used any of them, but that's
not the point. He's wrong, and you and
I both know it. If he photocopied one of
your books and began selling it on street
corners, I certainly expect that you'd be
irked.
A school principal once asked me to
lend him my Wildcard so he could make
copies of an expensive program the
school system had purchased. They had
28 machines, and the company wanted
$200 for one disk, no backup, for each
machine. The school system got a volume
discount for the computers but couldn't
get one for the software. It's one hell of
a moral dilemma for a man who's sup-
posed to set a good example to be, more
or less, forced into theft in order to meet
his commitment to society. Not only that,
it was also a really stupid program, but
through some hard-sell method that they
used they were able to con the school
system into buying it.
An even more ludicrous example of cor-
porate greed was in the papers here
recently. Seems a company, I'm not sure
which one, was suing a computer store for
violating the licensing agreement in using
this company's product in training semi-
nars they were conducting teaching busi-
nesspeople how to use the product. They
evidently were using one program per
machine (no hot copies) but were using
the same copies for each class of trainees,
instead of purchasing a new one for each
user. Talk about a case of biting the hand
that feeds you.
There's got to be some middle ground
somewhere, a place where consumers and
producers can fulfill their legitimate needs.
I, for one, don't buy a lot of software, most-
ly because of price, but also because
there's a lot of low-quality junk out there.
I don't like copy-protected disks because,
with my Apple at least, they always seem
to mess with the DOS and then, if my drive
is a bit off or whatever, I'm stuck with a
zapped disk. Besides, nobody can write
a perfect program that's perfect for all
machines and all users, but maybe I can
modify it to do something that the com-
pany never thought of. It saves me writing
a whole program from scratch and,
maybe, opens up a whole new market for
you. There's no way I could market it with-
out you knowing it's a variation of your
program, and I'm willing to settle for a
share of royalties. On the other hand, how-
ever, I probably could figure out a way to
break your copy protection, but why waste
my time? If it's a really good idea, I'm sure
that I'm much better off doing the pro-
gram from scratch and leaving you out in
the cold.
Furthermore, if 1 buy a car and the
engine goes bad or I just want to try a dif-
ferent one, I don't have to call the factory
for permission to change it. I bought it,
and it's mine. If I want to screw up the war-
ranty, that's my business. There's lots of
things I've seen that I'd pay $10 for, but
they cost $29.95. Lots of $100 programs
that I'd give $50 for. I haven't seen
anything that I'd pay $100 for, but I've seen
some stuff that would be worth more if
I could mold it to fit my own needs, but
1 can't because it's on a copy-protected
disk and it comes with some kind of stupid
licensing agreement that seems to say I've
only rented the thing, unless it goes bad,
in which case 1 own it and the guy I rented
it from doesn't have any obligation to
make it right. Why should 1 waste my hard-
earned money on a deal like that and still
not have a program that will do what I
want it to do? As for getting a hot copy,
why bother? If it's not worth buying, why
steal it?
It's time for the honorable people on
both sides to get together and set some
standards. If you sell me a fair program
at a fair price, I won't let anyone else have
a copy of it. If I've got more than one
machine, let's talk about a volume dis-
count. It's a lot of hassle for me to copy
disks and manuals, but 1 don't feel I should
pay full retail for each and every one of
them.
I'll tell you the same thing I told the
school principal: You can live in a swamp
without crawling in the slime. Those who
want to know how to break programs can
find out without you compromising your
integrity. Keep letting us know about
honorable outfits like Borland, and we can
deal with them. Despite what the experts
say, integrity is more important than
packaging. Let the rip-off artists deal with
each other, but isolate them; they deserve
each other.
Thanks for allowing me to ramble on in
this long letter.
Bruce Nattrass
Madison, Wl
Perhaps it's simply because it's tradi-
tional, but I see nothing fundamentally
wrong with the way copyright protects
books: when you buy a book, you own
it, but you have no right to sell or give
away copies, nor to keep a copy if you
dispose of the original. The disabled and
educational institutions have certain
rights as well.
It's illegal but physically possible to bor-
row books from the library and make
copies of them; fortunately, that's pretty
difficult. Alas, it's much easier to make
copies of software.
There's got to be an answer, and let's
hope that we find it soon. Thanks for a
thoughtful letter.
Best— Jerry ■
Help Needed
The last letter 1 sent to Swami
Shantam Paul was returned "unable to
forward." I'd appreciate it if anyone
knowing his new address could let me
know.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 383
SOURCE
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BYTE U.K.
••••• :{. ••••
The Torch Triple X
A UNIX
machine for
a (rumored)
personal
computer
price
by Dick Pountain
Dick Pountain is a technical author
and software consultant living in
London. England. He can be
contacted do BYTE, POB 372.
Hancock. NH 03449.
Torch Computers Ltd. is one of the
more successful British computer
manufacturing firms, although it is
not well known in the United States. Torch
entered the computer business by pro-
viding peripherals for the Acorn BBC Micro
(see BYTE U.K., September, page 385), a
machine that never crossed the Atlantic in
large numbers but is the second most
popular home computer (after the Sinclair
Spectrum) in the U.K.
When Acorn launched the BBC Micro (the
Beeb) in 1981, the company promised a
series of second processors (including the
Z80 and National Semiconductor's 16032)
to plug into the machine's high-speed bus,
called the Tube. Acorn itself was slow to pro-
duce these second processors, and Torch
Computers (Torch Computers Ltd., Ab-
berley House, Great Shelford, Cambridge
CB2 5LQ) was born to add the Z80 and
CP/M capability to the Beeb. After some
rather complicated politics, Torch's first
product became a whole new computer,
containing a BBC motherboard purchased
from Acorn and a Z80 running CP/N, Torch's
own CP/M-80-compatible operating system.
With twin floppy disks, color graphics, and
a built-in, post-office-approved modem (at
a time when such things were rare), the
machine certainly stood out from the
throng of "identikit" CP/M boxes that
dominated business computing in those
days.
Torch went on to produce an add-on box
for the Beeb, containing twin floppy-disk
drives, a Z80 with its own 64K-byte RAM
(random-access read/write memory), and
CP/N, which proved to be a considerable
success. It provided a relatively low-cost
entry into CP/M in much the same way that
Apple II Z80 cards did in the U.S.
This line of development— providing ex-
pansions to the Beeb, which Acorn had still
not delivered— led Torch naturally into UNIX
land. Again paralleling Apple in the U.S., the
Beeb had found favor in university depart-
ments, as well as with the hobbyists, and
these people wanted UNIX.
In 1983, Torch produced another (rather
large) add-on box called the Unicorn, which
contains both a 68000 and a Z80, runs both
Berkeley System III UNIX and CP/N, and
uses the Beeb as a color-graphics terminal.
Over the intervening years, Torch has ex-
tended the Unicorn into a range of stand-
alone UNIX personal computers and work-
stations, all based on the triple-processor
architecture, integral communications hard-
ware, networking, and the BBC sound and
graphics facilities. As a result. Torch has
quietly become one of the larger UNIX ven-
dors in the U.K. (in terms of installed base,
if not value), almost unnoticed by the
specialist UNIX houses. A recent report on
the UNIX marketplace in the U.K. ignored
Torch altogether, concentrating on ma-
chines that cost more than £15,000.
The Triple X
From the earliest days of the company,
Torch's designers had been working on a
full-fledged UNIX computer, code-named
the XXX or Triple X. Their experience with
the Unicorn design radically altered this
project; they more or less started again
from scratch using the latest personal com-
puter technology. Torch now has a product
that is to be officially launched in January
1986 at London's "Which Computer" show.
The product, a low-cost, mass-producible
personal computer running UNIX System V
and driven by Motorola's 68010 processor,
has retained the Triple X name.
The machine is aimed at the same market
as the AT&T UNIX PC, although it will prob-
ably be priced substantially lower. (Pricing
was not decided at press time, although
some adventurous figures being mentioned
are nearer to the IBM Personal Computer
than to typical UNIX prices.)
The Triple X (see photo 1) machine is a
desktop computer with a small foot-
print—smaller than an IBM PC and about
the same size as that of the Apricot from
[continued]
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 385
BYTE U.K.
Apricot Inc. The console unit contains
a single-board computer with a full
megabyte of RAM, a single 720K-byte
floppy-disk drive, and a 20-megabyte
Winchester drive. A single power cord
supplies both the console and dispiay
units, and the power switch is
software-controlled so that the
machine performs an orderly UNIX
shutdown before finally removing
power.
A tilting, swiveling 10-inch video-
display unit sits on top of the console
unit. This is a high-resolution color
unit, capable of a maximum graphics
resolution of 720 by 512 pixels. Torch
uses this bit-mapped graphics capa-
bility to provide a Macintosh-style
user interface to UNIX, complete with
windows, icons, and a mouse. The Tri-
ple X supports multiple type fonts
and laser-printer output, the latter via
an integral Ethernet controller.
The Triple X's white injection-
molded case permits modular expan-
sion. The console unit is a sandwich
of a base plate, a central rectangular
ring, and a lid. The processor and
memory motherboard fit into the
base, while the central ring contains
the disk drives, power supply, and fan.
The central ring can be lifted clear for
access. You can insert extra stacking
rings containing extra drives or other
peripherals into the sandwich. Alter-
natively, you can remove the ring,
leaving a diskless workstation. Using
the built-in VME bus interface, you
can add an extra-deep ring that turns
the console into a floor-standing mini-
computer-style unit that may contain
many VME cards and extra power
supplies.
Hardware Design
The Triple X is designed around the
68010 processor, which runs at 8
MHz, working in conjunction with the
684 51 MMU (memory-management
unit) and 684 50 DMA (direct memory
access) controller to support virtual-
memory operation in the 1-megabyte
T
Photo I: The Torch Triple X microcomputer.
main memory space.
A 6303 single-chip microcomputer
with on-chip RAM and ROM (read-
only memory) acts as a service pro-
cessor, which controls the video
modes and color palette, a battery-
backed clock with some CMOS (com-
plementary metal-oxide semicon-
ductor) setup memory, keyboard and
mouse, sound generation, serial com-
munications links, and a 1-MHz pe-
ripheral bus. This second processor
insulates the devices it controls from
the activities of the UNIX system so
that, for instance, the mouse can
move the screen cursor in real time
without interference from UNIX tasks.
It also relieves UNIX from any poten-
tial video synchronization problems
when changing screen modes. The
video system has its own separate
64 K bytes of RAM. part of which is
double-ported to serve as a message-
passing area for communications be-
tween the 68010 and the service pro-
cessor.
The service processor conducts
power-up diagnostic checks and
ascertains what devices exist in the
system before it bootstraps the 68010
If an optional on-board modem is
present, the service processor can
perform remote diagnostics on failure
of the main processor.
Despite the lack of any dedicated
hardware graphics processor, screen
refresh and raster moves (for exam-
ple, dragging windows or icons) are
exceptionally quick; the powerful
peripheral chips and service pro-
cessor appear to leave the 68010 with
plenty of steam to perform these
chores.
The amount of video memory pro-
vided is sufficient to allow 720 by 512
pixels in two colors (1 bit per pixel),
720 by 2 56 pixels in four colors (2 bits
per pixel), or 360 by 2 56 pixels in 16
colors (4 bits per pixel). The normal
operating mode is 720 by 2 56 pixels,
which provides sufficient resolution to
produce normal, bold, and italic type
styles with excellent clarity on the
screen. As on the Macintosh, the
choice of a small 1 0-inch screen for-
mat improves the perceived clarity of
{continued)
386 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
NEW LANGUAGE BREAKS OLD RULES.
GIVES PROGRAMMERS POWER, SPEED AND SIMPLICITY.
Try this remarkable language, PROM AL" for 30 Days AT NO RISK and...
We think you'll be thrilled with this
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Broken Rules
Now that PROMAL 2.0 has broken
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What Is PROMAL?
PROMAL stands for PROgrammer's
Micro Application Language. But
PROMAL is more than a high-level lan-
guage, it's a total structured program-
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one-pass compiler, a versatile full-screen
editor, plus an integrated machine-
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APPLE and Commodore systems it
includes a DOS-like system "Executive."
Better By Design
PROMAL was designed from "scratch"
for optimum performance and ease of
use on microcomputers. It has a simpli-
fied syntax with no awkward terminators
PROMAL 2.0 FEATURES
COMPILED LANGUAGE
• Structured indentation syntax
• No line numbers or terminators
• Long variable names (31 characters)
• Global. Local, & Argument variables
• Byte. Word, Integer & Real data types
• Decimal or Hex number types
• Functions & Procedures with passed arguments
• Predefined DATA of any type
• Multi- Dimensional Arrays {any type)
• Strings & pointers
■ Control Statements: IE IF-ELSE, WHILE. FOR.
CHOOSE. REPEAT-UNTIL, BREAK. NEXT,
INCLUDE, ESCAPE, REFUGE
• Bit-operators, shifts, type casts
• Variables at any memory location
• Simple Machine Language interface
• Recursion supported
• Program chaining and overlays (IMPORT/ EXPORT)
• Separate compilation of modules
• Load and run relocatable M/L programs
• Compile errors trapped for Editor
EXECUTIVE (APPLE II & C64 Only)
• Command driven, with line editing
• Multiple user programs in memory at once
• Function key definitions
• Progam abort and pause
• Prior command recall
• I/O Re-direction & batch jobs
• •'DOS"-like commands: COPY, RENAME, DELETE,
display FILES, TYPE. HELP, etc.
• Memory MAP SET. and display commands
EDITOR
• Full-screen, cursor driven
• Function key controlled
• Line insert, delete, search
• String search and replace
• Block copy, move, delete & file read/write operations
• Auto indent, undent support
LIBRARY
• 50 Resident Machine -language commands
• Call by name with arguments
• String handling (9 routines)
• Re-directable I/O (STDIN & STDOUT)
• Formatted numeric output
• Decimal & Hexadecimal I/O
• Block fill/move/read/write
• Cursor control & line editing
• Data type conversion
• Random number function
• Real function support (in PROMAL):
ABS, ATAN, COS, EXR LOG. LOG10. POWER, SIN,
SQRT. TAN
■ Modem device support & much more
like ";" or "}" and indentation is part
of the syntax, so structuring your code
is natural and easy. Just compare
PROMAL with BASIC in this example:
Equivalent Program Segments
; PROMAL
HEPEAT
PROMPT J\T 5.24 Add Chg Outf>
IF Reply ^ A
ADD Item
NewJIems - New Hems + 1
ELSE IF Reply
CHANGE Hem
UNTIL Reply - 'Q'
11910 REM- -BASIC
11920CL-5:LN 24 PR$ AddChgOuiP
1 1925 GOSUB 9490REM GET REPLY
11930 IF RP$- -A" THEN 11950
1194019 -ITGOSUB10100REMADD
11945NI =NI ■ 1 GOTO 11920
11950 IF RP$ C THEN 11970
1196019 -IT GOSUB 6050 REM CHG
11970 IF RP$- 'Q' THEN 11920
PROMAL is readable and understand-
able. You see the logic from the structure.
And PROMAL lets you call procedures
by name-so no more GOSUBs. But
there's more.
Slick Editor
Editing your source is a snap with the
specially-designed and integrated full-
screen Editor -it not only helps you
structure your program, it even finds
compilation errors- automatically.
Quick Compiler
The compiler is a lightning-fast,
one-pass, recursive descent design. On
the IBM PC it crunches source to object
at 2000 lines per minute, and it's
equally impressive on the Apple and
C64. And your PROMAL source code is
portable from machine to machine.
That means your source can be used on
all PROMAL target machines.
Run-Time Speed Demon
PROMAL blows away Apple II and
C64 languages from BASIC and PASCAL
to FORTH. (Send $3 for a copy of our
full benchmark report.) It's 2000%
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DOS For Those Without
If you don't have a real "DOS," then
PROMAL gives you a true operating
system environment with the built-in
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Order Form for PROMAL 30-Day Trial!
My system is (check one)
□ IBM PC/100% compatibles □ APPLE Ilc/IIe
D COMMODORE 64/128
Please RUSH me:
□ PROMAL Developer's System-Compiler, Editor,
Library, Demo disk, 280-page manual, (Plus Execu-
tive for Apple and C-64) and stand-alone program
generation (no rovalties).
$99.95 + 5.00 Shipping & Handling
□ End-User System for Apple llc/IIe and Commodore
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$49.95 + 5.00 Shipping* Handling
□ Graphics ToolBox (Apple/C64 only) -20 routines
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29.95 + 2.50 Shipping & Handling
■ WMtlMG IttOCHIlM
Outside Opinion
Naturally we're enthusiastic about
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Naperville, 111.
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"I don't know that I've ever seen a
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remarkable. Its speed of execution is
phenomenal . . . congratulations."
E. C. R.
Alexandria, VA
Safety In Numbers
SMA, Inc. has been satisfying cus-
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Send us some bucks and we'll send
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Call TOLL-FREE to order with your
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you deserve the power of PROMAL today!
1-800-762-7874
In NC: 919-878-3600
VMrMr
Systems Management Associates, Inc.
3325 Executive Drive, Dept. PB-6
Raleigh, North Carolina 27609
PROMAL runs on IBM PC/PCjr with 192K,
Commodore 64/128, APPLE He, or APPLE He
with 80 Col. 128K Card,
and is NOT COPY-
PROTECTED.
Please charge my
□ Visa
□ MasterCard
D American Express
□ My check is enclosed
Card Number
Signature
Name
Address
City
. Exp. Date_
State .
. Zip_
NC residents add 4'/2% sales tax.
Foreign orders add $20.00 additional shipping.
Inquiry 344
PROMAL is a trademark of Systems Management Associates, Inc. Turbo Pascal is a trademark of Borland International, Inc.
DECEMBER 1985
1YTE 387
Inquiry 72
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You can select
colors interactively
with a palette editor,
allowing control of red,
green, and blue levels.
the displayed characters.
The color selection is extremely
flexible. The physical color palette is
a 16 by 8 RAM under the control of
the 6303, into which bytes are stored
to select the 16 displayable colors.
Each palette byte controls the inten-
sities of the red. green, and blue
beams in the monitor, with 3 bits each
devoted to red and green (eight levels)
and 2 bits to blue (four levels). This
allows 16 colors to be chosen ar-
bitrarily from a possible 2 56. There
are two logical palettes, mark and flash.
allowing flashing displays that cyclical-
ly swap from one to the other.
You can use all 16 colors in screen
mode 1 (360 by 2 56 pixels). In the
normal screen mode (720 by 2 56
pixels), you can only use 4 actual
hues, but 16 halftone tints are avail-
able if you mix all the pairs: these tints
are subtle and show no visible half-
tone pattern at all. You can select
colors interactively with a palette
editor, allowing direct control of the
red, green, and blue levels, which are
displayed as a bar chart. You may alter
these levels with the mouse: since
changes take effect immediately you
can even use it for color matching.
Communications on the Triple X are
handled by two more built-in devices,
a Zilog SCC (serial-communications
controller) and the Lance Ethernet
controller. The back panel provides
two serial data channels with D-type
connectors. One is configured as
RS-423A and the other as X.2 5, but
you may reconfigure them both with
software to support high-speed syn-
chronous protocols such as HDLC
(high-level data-link control) and SDLC
(synchronous data-link control). The
Ethernet controller uses DMA to
avoid buffering and can operate con-
currently with the central processor.
The detachable keyboard has 10
function keys, a numeric pad. and four
cursor-control keys. It uses a layout
that is vaguely IBM-like but has
superior key placements and sizes
(e.g., a huge L-shaped Return key). It
is completely soft, and you can pro-
gram any key from the UNIX shell to
generate a string.
The mouse is a two-button serial
device. On the prototype machine I
tested, it plugged into the RS-42 3A
port, but on the production models
it will have its own socket.
The main board contains a VME
bus interface so that you can use the
Triple X as a processor card in VME
systems. Torch has prototypes of a
68020 processor board that can use
Triple X boards as device controllers
in a multiprocessing VME system: the
Triple X slave processors write directly
into the 68020s memory for fast com-
munication.
Software Design
The Triple X's operating system is
UniPlus + System V an implementa-
tion of UNIX System V from UniSoft
Systems, ported for Torch by Root
Computers Ltd. of England. It's a com-
plete UNIX implementation with the
Berkeley enhancements, Root's en-
hancements (for unbuffered DMA)
disk access and code sharing between
processes, and Torch's own exten-
sions to handle a bit-mapped-graphics
(rather than a character-oriented)
display device.
The Torch MMI (man-machine inter-
face) is mostly built into the UNIX
kernel for maximum speed: it never
gets swapped out of memory just
when you need it. User programs can
access the MMI either through direct
system calls or through an extensive
C library provided with the Triple X.
The interface between UNIX proper
and the MMI promotes compatibility
with standard UNIX software. UNIX
sees a console driver to which it
sends a character output stream in
the normal fashion, oblivious to the
[continued)
388 BYTE • DECEMBER I9«i
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87FFT-2 performs two-dimensional FFTs
Ideal for image processing Requires 87FFT $100
GRAPHICS PACKAGES
Grafmatic for Fortran or Pascal $1 25
Plotmatic for Grafmatic $1 25
MultiHalo (one language) $1 89
DFixer " - Eliminates the AT hard disk pro-
blem! A disk which thoroughly checks PC or AT
hard disks for bad sectors and updates the MS
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EPSILON " - our favorite in-house editor lets
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87 BASIC/I N LI N E " converts the output of
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ter than 87BASIC. Supports separately compiled
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code. This allows programs greater than 128K!
Requires the IBM Basic Compiler and Macro
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87 BASIC" includes patches to the IBM Basic
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87MACRO/DEBUG " contains all the
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RTOS - REALTIME OPERATING SYSTEM
RTOS is a multi-user, multi- tasking real time oper-
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INTEL COMPILERS 1
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PASCAL-86 $750
PL/M-86 $500
ASM-86 $2O0
'Requires RTOS or iRMX-86 All Intel compiler names and
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For IBM PC and compatibles
8087-3 5mhz $175
For the Tandy 1 200.
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For Wang, AT&T, DeskPro, NEC, Leading Edge.
80287-3 5mhz $199
For the IBM PC AT and Compaq DeskPro 286.
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With Reset Button and Diagnostics.
64KRAMSet $8
256KRAMSet $29
256K CMOS RAM Set $39
128KRAMSetPCAT $89
AST Boards call
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J RAM" AT(0K) $229
JRAM-3"(128K) $275
INTEL ABOVE BOARD CALL
FORTRAN, C and BASIC
Microsoft Fortran Version 3.3 $229
IBM Professional Fortran 545
Ryan-McFarland Fortran 399
FORLIB+ or STRINGS and THINGS 65
Lattice C or Microsoft C Version 3.0 299
FLOAT87 1 50
IBM Basic Compiler Version 2.0 445
Microsoft Quick Basic 89
Summit BerterBASIC" 1 75
True Basic 1 05
MACRO ASSEMBLERS
IBM Assembler with Librarian V. 2.0 1 55
Microsoft Assembler Version 3.01 1 25
PASCAL and APL
Microsoft Pascal Version 3.3 1 99
Borland Turbo with 8087 Support 85
STSC APL*PLUS/PC 450
STATGRAPHICS 595
COSMOS Revelation 750
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FASTBREAK and NUMBER SMASHER are trademarks ol
MicroWay, Inc Lotus and 1 -2-3 are trademarks ot Lotus Devel-
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Inquiry 248
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 389
BYTE U.K.
very different processing that these
characters receive inside the MMI.
Special Triple X features are
organized into three categories, in
ascending order of complexity, which
are invoked by one of three methods:
sending control characters, escape se-
quences, or calls to the ioctl routine.
This permits standard UNIX software
to use the basic features such as type
styles and colors without modification
and the others with fairly minor modi-
fication.
The MMI is composed of nine
manager modules. Eight of them are
part of the UNIX kernel: window
manager, keyboard and mouse
manager, menu manager, font and
text manager, graphics manager,
event manager, icon manager, and
track manager: the desktop manager
is a process that provides a mouse, win-
dow, and icon shell. The experienced
user can modify it fairly easily.
In my limited use of the Torch MMI,
I found it to be a thorough inplemen-
tation. It appears at least as deep"
as the Macintosh operating system
and goes well beyond it in places. It's
constructed on classic Xerox PARC
lines, starting from the BitBIt routine
that performs basic raster copying,
shading, and clipping, although
Torch's BitBIt incorporates the han-
dling of color bit planes. All visual ob-
jects, from a point up to the whole
screen, are represented by forms. A
form consists of a bit map and the
parameters that specify its dimen-
sions and colors. BitBIt manipulates
these forms.
The graphics manager, called Torch-
Draw, is built on top of BitBIt. It sup-
ports line, ellipse, and arc drawing,
area fills, rectangle framing, clipping,
scrolling, and more. The drawing pen
may be any form of arbitrary size, not
just a point, and so the placement of
icons and mouse cursors becomes an
ordinary act of plotting.
Forms of arbitrary size also repre-
sent type fonts, with style (normal,
bold, or italic] kept as a separate at-
tribute that you can toggle by sending
control codes. Torch has commis-
sioned professional typographers to
create a series of ISO (International
Standards Organization] fonts with
typeset-quality attributes, such as pro-
portional spacing and kerning.
Torch loaned me a preproduction
version of the machine on which the
lower layers were all in place, but the
desktop manager was only partially
complete. Therefore, the following
description comes partly from direct
experience and partly from the pro-
grammers' specification documents
for yet-to-be-implemented features.
The desktop metaphor is similar to
that of the Macintosh (except that it's
{continued)
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390 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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Dealer inquiries welcomed
Inquiry 266
itffl-rtfa + if
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BYTE
e small systems journal
slur
THE SMALL SYSTEMS JOURNAL
70 Main Street
Peterborough, NH 03458
(603) 924-9281
BYTE U.K.
One feature of the
Triple X that appeared
novel to me is
the superimposition
of icons.
in color); it employs a group of icons
presented on the screen that you can
drag or click on. The left mouse but-
ton selects single icons; the right but-
ton, groups of icons.
Files are classified as tools (i.e., ex-
ecutable processes), data, or folders
(i.e.. UNIX directories). The system
provides standard icons to represent
these three types. Each directory may
contain a file called desktop, so that
many desktops can exist in the system;
different users may each have their
own. In each folder there may also be
a file called icons that allocates user-
defined icons (created with a supplied
icon editor) to specific files. These
override the default icons and display
when you open the folder represent-
ing the directory. Icon bit maps are
named and stored in files in a system
directory called /icons; they are
allocated to files indirectly, using their
names, so that if you modify an icon,
the new version automatically
replaces every instance of its use.
One feature that appeared novel to
me is the superimposition of icons.
You can give a data file to a program
as an argument by dragging its icon
on top of the program icon, an exten-
sion of the trash-can usage in
previous systems.
The Triple X supports hierarchical
directories in a natural way. Opening
a folder by double clicking creates a
new window revealing other folders
that you can open. You can only have
one folder window active (on top) at
one time, but you can have many visi-
ble on the screen, and you can bring
another one to the top in the usual
way by clicking in it. You can drag tool
and data icons out of a folder onto
the desktop and copy them by drag-
ging them onto another folder. A file
dragged to the desktop stays there
even when you close its folder, and
you should replace it after you're
through using it. You can drag data
files from the desktop onto tools in
other open folders, and certain tools
(for example, Is) accept whole folders
as arguments. UNIX is a multitasking
system; therefore, you can have dif-
ferent processes running in different
windows, which means that you can
click and activate some kinds of icons
(continued)
SMARTER 1
MEGA BYTE
SYSTEM BOARD
IBM AT COMPATIBLE
CPU MOTHER BOARD
FEATURES:
* Dual speed 8 MHz or 6 MHz CPU (80286) selectable by software
(Optional 9, 10 MHz CPU) selection with standard 6 MHz operation
* 1 Mega Byte standard main memory on board, 16 Mega Byte in
system in the protected virtual address mode
* Multiuser and multitasking operation
* Virtual memory and disk capability
* 2 sockets for 27256 eprom (SMT Bios will be available with a
nominal fee)
* 8 I/O expansion slots: 6 with dual 62 pin and 36 pin connectors,
2 with single 62 pin connectors
* Socket for 80287 Math processor
* CMOS clock and calender circuit
* On board battery backup, no external cable required
* External hardware reset capability
* Power on LED indicator
* NO selection jumper (no headache for system configuration)
* 24 bit addressing, 16 bit data path
* 16 level interrupt capability
* 7 channel direct memory access (DMA)
* 3 programmable timers available
* Speaker/keyboard connector
* Fully assembled and tested board $995
* EASY board with all sockets and components installed except
ICs $495
* 90 days warranty, parts and labor
OEM, VAR, Dealers and Corporate purchasing discount inquiry invited
(IBM AT are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation)
The Smartek 1 Mega Byte System Board has a lot of advantages over the
Faraday's A-Tease, ATI-1000, and IBM PC AT boards.
SMARTEK
FARADAY
ATI
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Memory
1 Mega byte
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640k
(standard)
640k
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512k
(standard)
Number of ICs
129
154
130
130
Dual Clocks
6 MHz and
8 MHz select
(9. 10 MHz opt)
6 MHz only
6 MHz only 6 MHz only
Jumpers option
none
plenty
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1
Battery
on board
(serviceable)
external
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(unserviceable)
PCB layers
4
8
4
6
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yes
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Power on LED
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External Reset
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Lowest cost
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Inquiry 122
392 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
.- - -,<w.-s-.v.>w' c-MJ.;- * ~ ->
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roTAI
BYTE U.K.
more than one time.
Double clicking to activate icons is
more flexible than in previous systems
I've seen. The icons file specifies what
action, defined by UNIX shell com-
mands, should occur when an icon is
double-clicked. There are default ac-
tions: no action for a data file and the
program name itself for a tool, but
you can insert any arbitrarily complex
action instead. This file also lets you
define some icons as acceptors (for ex-
ample, icons that can receive others
as arguments).
The MMI integrates transparently
with UNIX, since you can always open
a window and issue shell commands
in the normal way. But for the non-
enthusiast, using icons and pointing
is tremendously effective in cushion-
ing you from the brutality of the UNIX
user interface. If developers would
give sensible names to all the utility
programs as well, 1 would be a com-
plete convert. Since you no longer
need to type them, the rationale for
monosyllabic monstrosities like grep
has disappeared.
Conclusions
Even in its prototypical state, the
Torch Triple X has a polished and pro-
fessional design that exploits the
latest technology (2 56K-byte RAMs,
etc.) in a way that makes it mass-
producible at ordinary desktop com-
puter prices. Handled properly, it
could well be the machine that spurs
the long-awaited UNIX takeoff. The
excellent user interface overcomes
most of the objections against UNIX
as an operating system for ordinary
mortals.
The only remaining question con-
cerns the amount of application soft-
ware available under UNIX. Here,
Torch is taking an active stance. Rather
than talking about third-party sup-
port, they have commissioned stan-
dard applications, including a word
processor and spreadsheet from a
London-based UNIX software house,
that should fully utilize the advanced
user interface.
If the launch price is as low as some
of the figures currently circulating sug-
gest, Torch will have no trouble sell-
ing the machine to its traditional
academic and scientific customers. In
pursuing the longer-term goal of sell-
ing to the business user. Torch may
find the most serious competition
coming, paradoxically, from the Com-
modore Amiga rather than the AT&T
UNIX PC, which I think looks rather
drab by comparison.
The Triple X is unlikely to be sold
in the U.S. by Torch; in fact Torch is
looking for a major U.S. company to
manufacture it. A deal is close as this
column goes to press, so keep an eye
open for the announcement. ■
Real-Time Multitasking Executive
i No royalties
i Source code included
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i Ideal for process control
i Timing control provided
i Low interrupt overhead
i Inter-task messages
Options:
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■ Language Interfaces :
C Pascal
PL/M Fortran
■ DOS File Access :
CP/M-80
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AMX isTM of KADAK Products Ltd
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AT Unenhanced
IBM Monitor
IBM PC64K
PC XT
PC XT Clone
IBM Drive
AST Si* Pack
Tall Grass 25 Meg
Quad Board
Keylronics
Hercules Color
Hercules Monochrome
Mitsuba Monochrome
Paradise Graphics
Paradise 5 Pack
STB Graphics +2
STBR10 + 2
STB Mono Board
Tecmar Graphics
TecmarCaptian
Per9yst Monocard
Bernoull Box
3921
2912
806
1349
1680
1099
'46
193
80287 Chip
AST Advantages
Everex Edge
Everex Magic
APPLE
130XE
800 XL
1027 Printer
1050 Drive
Indus Drive
200
MODEMS
Hayes 1200 349
Hayes 1200B vWSmaftcom 326
Hayes 300 120
Hayes 2400 562
Mlcromodem 2E 125
Novation J-c«1 79
Promethous 1200 289
800-441-1144
Amdek 300 Green
Amdek 300 Amber
310 Amber
Color 300
Color 500
Color 600
Color 700
Color 710
PrindonHX12
Princton Max 12
SR12
Taxan 220
Taxan420
COMMODORE
Commodore 128
Commodore 64
1451 Disk Drive
1702 Monitor 1
MPS 803
Indus Drive
Card co Interface
394 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry I97
Items reflect cash discount For your protection we check for stolen creclt cards
MC I VISA welcome. Personal checks cause 4 week delay
Inquiry I60
U
I Program In BetterBASIC
Ana I Recommend It!'
"Lifeboat Associates," has expanded its philosophy of endorsing structured programming
languages to include a truly superior product— BetterBASIC. More than just a BASIC,
BetterBASIC offers use of the full memory of the computer, true procedures and functions,
modularity and more. BetterBASIC has the advantages of the C language on which Lifeboat
built its reputation and appeals to the wide audience of programmers who already program in
BASIC. I liked BetterBASIC so much, I decided "Lifeboat" should publish it. I program in
BetterBASIC and I recommend it."
Dr. Edward Currie, President — Lifeboat Assoc. — New York, NY
640K Now you can use the
full memory of your PC to
develop large programs.
STRUCTURED Create well
organized programs using
procedures and functions
that are easily identified
and understood and
completely reusable in
future programs.
MODULAR Use proce-
dures and functions
grouped together to form
"library modules" which are
then available to you or
anyone else for future use.
EXTENSIBLE Create your
own BetterBASIC modules which contain
BetterBASIC extensions. This feature
coupled with the easy-to-use Assembly
Language support, makes this an ideal
OEM language.
INTERACTIVE BetterBASIC acts like an
interpreter because it responds to the users'
commands in an immediate mode.
However each statement is actually
compiled as it is entered.
COMPILED Each line of the program is
compiled as it is entered into the computer's
memory rather than interpreted at runtime.
RUNTIME SYSTEM The optional Runtime
System generates stand alone EXE. files
allowing for the distribution of products
written in BetterBASIC with
no royalties.
SUPPORTS Windows,
Graphics, DOS and BIOS
ROM calls, Chaining,
Overlays, Local and Global
Variables, Recursion . . . and
more.
BetterBASIC Runs on IBM
PC, XT, AT and all IBM-
compatibles. Ask your local
dealer for BetterBASIC or
call 1-800-225-5800 in
Canada call 416-469-5244.
Also available for the Tandy
1000, 1200, AND 2000 AT
Tandy/Radio Shack stores.
Summit Software Technology, IncI"
RO. Box 99, Babson Park
Wellesley MA 02157
PRICES:
BetterBASIC
$199
8087/80287 Math Module
$99
BTrieve™ Interface
$99
Runtime System
$250
Sample Disk with Tutorial
$10
B^C.
Because It's The Best.
MasterCard, Visa, Checks, Money Order, COD accepted and P.O. on approval.
BetterBASIC is a registered trademark of Summit Software Technology Inc. IBM PC, XT, AT, are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp.
Tandy is a registered trademark of Tandy Corp. Btrieve is a registered trademark of SoftCraft Inc.
(If you're using BetterBASIC and would like to be featured in one of our ads, please write to the Director of Advertising at Summit.)
Inquiry 34 I
DECEMBER 1985 "BYTE 395
You were smart to buy
Turbo Pascal back then.
Now you'd be smart to sell it.
AND HERE'S YOUR CHANCE.
TRADE IN YOUR TURBO
PASCAL AND GET THE
MODULA-2 SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM
(M2SDS) FOR JUST $50.88.
How can you get the latest in pro-
gramming efficiency? Simple. Just
send us your Turbo Pascal diskette* -
whether it's IBM format or not-and
we'll send you M2SDS for just $50.88.
That's $30 off the regular price.
Why switch? Because Modula-2
was specifically designed by the
developer of Pascal, to replace the
Pascal language. So you already know
the language basics that will help you
start programming right away.
And when you combine the power
of Modula-2 with all the features of
M2SDS, you'll be programming faster
than ever-in virtually no time at all.
Just look at all the extras M2SDS
includes. And how it outperforms
Turbo Pascal in independent studies.
So now that you're wise to Turbo
Pascal, why not trade it in? And trade
up to the programming efficiency of
the future. Get M2SDS for just $50.88
when you send us your Turbo Pascal
diskette. Or, order M2SDS for just
$80.88 without the trade.
Either way, it's one of the smartest
moves you can make in programming.
And now, it's the best deal going.
Turbo Pascal is a trademark of Borland International.
'Diskette will be destroyed immediately upon receipt,
so that your Borland license agreement is not violated.
M2SDS
TURBO 3.0
COMPILE SPEED (Ml N: SEC)
30 LINES
0:09.00
0:02.00
360 LINES
0:25.00
0:05.00
EXECUTION SPEED (MIN:SEC)
SIEVE
0:13.92
0:15.26
FIBONACCI
0:53.49
1:49.74
30X30 MATRIX (8087)
0:08.84
0:19.28
FP OPERATIONS
0:52.12
0:31.75
FP OPERATIONS (8087)
0:01.97
0:06.21
SYNTAX CHECKING ED f TOR
YES
NO
MULTIPLE WINDOW EDITING
YES
NO
EDITOR FILESIZE LIMIT
MEMORY SIZE
64K
COMPILE ERROR CALLS EDITOR
YES
YES
LINKER
YES
NO
PRODUCES EXE FILES
YES
NO
EXECUTABLE CODE SIZE LIMIT
DISK SPACE
64K
DOS ACCESS FROM EDITOR
YES
NO
DOS ACCESS FROM PROGRAMS
YES
LIMITED
8087 SUPPORT STANDARD
YES
NO
COPY-PROTECTED DISK
NO
NO
COST WITH 8087 SUPPORT
$80.88
$109.90
r
Trade in your Turbo Pascal for M2SDS today.
Or, order your copy by completing this coupon.
□ Enclosed is my Turbo Pascal diskette
and a check for $50.88, plus $4 shipping and
handling.
□ Enclosed is my Turbo Pascal diskette.
Apply charges to the credit card indicated
below.
H Please send me M2SDS for $80.88, plus $4
shipping and handling. My check is enclosed.
□ Please send me M2SDS for $80.88. Apply
charges to the credit card indicated below.
VISA/MasterCard/ American Express.
(Circle One)
Credit card #
Expiration Date _
Name
(Signature required for credit card orders )
Address
City
State/Zip _
Price does not include shipping and handling. Texas
residents add 6. 125% sales tax International orders
add $30.
INTERFACE TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION
3336 Richmond. Suite 200 Houston, TX 77098
I I
Source: Software Resources, Inc.
Sieve program from BYTE, January 1983.
Fibonacci program from Dr. Dobb's Journal. February
1985.
Matrix program from BYTE, October, 1982.
FP Operations program from BYTE, May 1985.
Turbo Pascal without 8087 uses only 6-byte accuracy
for type REAL: M2SDS with or without 8087 uses
8-byte accuracy.
Programs compiled with all checking options on.
All tests conducted on a standard IBM 'PC/XT 'with
512K of memory and an 8087 math coprocessor.
a.
INTERFACE
TECHNOLOGIES
3336 Richmond Ave., Suite 200
Houston, Texas 77098
1-800-922-9049
(In Texas, call 713/523-8422) Telex: 322127
Modula-2 Bulletin Board: 713/523-7255
396 BYTE • DECEMBER 198 5
A-fh
BYTE JAPAN
Computing in Taiwan
The Computex '85
computer show
software piracy
by William M. Raike
This month, BYTE Japan could be
called BYTE Asia. The entire BYTE
lapan staff (namely, me) selflessly
and a look at agreed to visit Taiwan for a few days to
report on the Computex '85 computer show
held there during the week of July 12-18.
1 also wanted to check out the rumors I've
heard concerning software (and hardware)
piracy in that country.
It had been three years since I last visited
the city of Taipei, one of Asia's premier
economic miracles. New construction is
erupting everywhere, the air pollution and
traffic are even worse than before, the
Chinese (and Taiwanese) food is as good as
ever, and there are hundreds upon hun-
dreds of small- and medium-size companies
turning out high-quality personal computers
at incredibly low prices. If you want to buy
computer equipment and are planning to
visit this part of the world soon, the poten-
tial savings on equipment combined with
the low cost of travel and lodging might
make it worthwhile for you to stop in Taiwan.
The Show
Computex '85 was held under the auspices
of Taiwan's China External Trade Develop-
ment Council (CETDC) in its huge exhibition
hall at the Sungshan domestic airport. The
overwhelming majority of exhibitors were
offering equipment compatible with the
IBM PC or the IBM PC XT computers. As
regular BYTE lapan readers know, this situa-
tion is completely different from the one in
lapan, where IBM PC compatibility isn't
even an issue. Most of the computers were
straight-out clones, but I saw a number of
innovative ideas, including IBM PC- and
Apple-compatible portable computers and
an interesting new machine based on the
80186 processor.
William M. Raike, who has a Ph.D.
in applied mathematics from North-
western University, has taught opera-
tions research and computer science
in Austin. Texas, and Monterey.
California. He holds a patent on a
voice scrambler and was formerly an
officer of Cryptext Corporation in
the U.S. Im 1980. he went to lapan
looking for 64K-ftl RAMs. He has
been there ever since as a technical
translator and a software developer.
He can be contacted do BYTE,
POB 372. Hancock. NH 03449.
ERSO BIOS
How, I wondered, do these small companies
manage to legally produce IBM PC-com-
patible machines without investing large
amounts of money to develop their own
BIOS (basic input/output system)— the nuts-
and-bolts software that underlies the oper-
ating system and lets the machine run? How
do they avoid infringement lawsuit
problems?
I got an answer I hadn't expected. An
organization called ERSO (the Electronics
Research and Service Organization, spon-
sored by the Taiwanese government) has
developed its own BIOS, which it claims is
acceptable to IBM as noninfringing. For
modest fees, small computer manufacturers
can obtain licenses for the ERSO BIOS. That
way, they avoid the need for large software-
development outlays and escape the risk of
serious legal entanglements when they at-
tempt to export to the United States, which
is clearly their target market.
The same thing could have been done by
a private organization, but the Taiwanese
government had strong reasons to become
involved: It needs to make visible efforts to
put a stop to the export of illegal copies of
proprietary hardware and software. The
ERSO BIOS makes an appealing carrot; the
accompanying stick is an apparent deter-
mination by the Taiwanese government, at
the behest of the CETDC, to prosecute com-
puter pirates. In early June, the Taiwan
Supreme Court confirmed jail sentences for
three people convicted of selling illegal
copies of Apple II manuals and software.
Earlier, another manufacturer was sen-
tenced to a year in jail and fined for illegal-
ly copying IBM software. Current Taiwanese
law calls for a jail sentence of up to five
years for manufacturing counterfeit goods
and up to one year for selling or exhibiting
them.
Another government move to discourage
computer pirates becomes evident when
you go to the airport to leave the country.
Taiwan is one of the few places I've been
to that requires a customs inspection for
departing passengers. A specific item on
the declaration form asks you to list any
computer disks, tapes, or other software
(continued)
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 397
If you need easy access
to your IBM mainframe,
our Emulation Adapters
are just the tickets.
With the IBM Enhanced 5250 Emulation
Adapter or the IBM 3278/79 Emulation
Adapter, you can quickly convert your IBM
Personal Computer into an online terminal.
Thereby gaining easy access to mainframe data
without leaving your desk. And making the
transfer of data between PC and mainframe
simple.
What's more, you can access programs at the
host and run PC programs simultaneously.
Switching from one to the other with a simple
keystroke sequence.
You can even pick your own printer in most
cases: the hosts high-speed printer or your own
PC's printer.
Put the power of our most popular
mainframes on your desk.
The enhanced 5250 emulation
card allows you to access the
IBM System/ 34. 36 or 38
with your PC. PC XT.
PC AT or Portable
PC. (Remote access is
available on the System
/36 and 38 using
appropriate hardware
and software.)
And the 3278/70 card
lets you and your IBM
PC, PC XT or PC AT
interact with the IBM
4300, 3081, 3083 or
3000. either local
or remote.
You'll thank us
for the memory.
The 3278/70
card's emulation
control program requires only 23K of memory.
Which means, with our 3278/79
card, you've got more memory left for appli-
cation programs. And less tied up with
housekeeping functions.
The key to keyboard familiarity.
The enhanced 5250 card's emulation pro-
gram lets you define keyboard functions. Default
definitions make it easy to map the PC, PC XT,
PC AT or Portable PC keyboards to the 5291
keyboard. You can also define
your own personal keyboard layout
and play back predefined
strings of keys.
The 3278/79 Emulation Adapter
is now available
through your dealer.
The 5250 card
is carried
by selected
dealers. Both
Emulation
Adapters are
available at
IBM Prod-
uct Centers
and
__ through
your IBM
marketing
representative. You'll
pleasantly surprised by
the cost of either card.
So if you'd like to put the power of your
company's mainframe to work for you.
put in one of our Emulation Adapters.
And you'll find out why our cards are the
hottest tickets in town. ^^— —
Inquiry 174
BYTE JAPAN
Inquiry 358
purchased in Taiwan. If the customs
inspector finds any software or hard-
ware product in your luggage that
doesn't have a seal indicating specific
government approval, it will be con-
fiscated.
The ERSO BIOS apparently hasn't
discouraged technological competi-
tion. Some companies producing
IBM-compatible machines have
chosen, either independently or in
partnership with U.S. firms, to develop
their own BlOSes. bypassing the
government effort. They claim that
their BlOSes are faster than the ER-
SO version, while maintaining full IBM
PC compatibility.
The LEO Personal Computer
One of the most interesting machines
at Computex '85 was the LEO AT/XT
from First International Computer Inc.
(see photo 1). The LEO isn't really an
IBM clone, but the company claims
that it is fully compatible with the IBM
PC XT and has some of the features
of the PC AT as well.
The LEO is based on an 80186
microprocessor (the same type as in
my Fujitsu FM-16/3 computer) running
at 8 MHz; it's supposed to be about
three times as fast as the IBM PC XT.
It uses some kind of dual-bus architec-
ture; a spokesperson for the company
wasn't specific. The LEO has its own
BIOS, developed in cooperation with
an American company, and First Inter-
national Computer claims it will run
either MS-DOS or PC-DOS as well as
Concurrent CP/M-86. I saw it running
several popular application software
products, including Lotus Develop-
ment Corporation's 1-2-3.
The LEO comes in three configura-
tions; all have 512K bytes of memory
on the main board (you can expand
the memory up to 1 megabyte by
adding a memory board) and include
a keyboard and a color-graphics card
as well as a floppy-disk controller,
Centronics-compatible printer port,
and RS-232C serial interface.
The differences between the three
versions involve the disk drives. The
top-of-the-line model, the LEO AT/
XT-2, includes one 360K-byte floppy-
disk drive, one 1.2-megabyte floppy-
(continued)
Photo 1: The LEO AT/XT personal computer.
\
* A
j
Number One
In Performance
Hard Disk
Intelligent
VCR Backup
for AT/XT/PC
FEATURES
High speed microprocessor
controlled backup (68008)
• Two channel interface
• Built in LAN channel
• Software control of most VCR
functions including Fast Forward,
Rewind, and auto backup using VCR
timer capabilities
• Economical VHS or Beta formats
4704 W JENNIFER. SUITE 105 • FRESNO. CA 9371 1
209/276-2345
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 399
Inquiry 3 59
BYTE JAPAN
Companies Mentioned
Aquarius Systems Inc.
Taipei, Taiwan
394 Keelung Rd. Sec. 1, 6F
Telephone: (02) 766-1991
P.O. Box 48-29
Telex: 25907 IFYWU or 12998 PCDATA
Taipei. Taiwan
Telephone: (02) 706-9140
K.S. Brotherbox Company Ltd.
Telex: 13138 AQUSYS
6F-1 No. 3 Shin Sen N. Rd. Sec. 1
(or P.O. Box 32-62)
Autosim Company Ltd.
Taipei, Taiwan
F.O. Box 3-10 Hsichih
Telephone: (02) 391-0837
Taipei Hsien Taiwan
Telex: 13264 KSBOX
Telephone: (02) 643-1520
Telex: 32454 AUTOWEB
OST-EMPOR Electronics Company Ltd.
No. 12, Alley 16, 7th Fl.
First International Computer Inc.
Lane 12 Sec. 3 Pateh Rd.
201 Tung Hwa N. Rd., 13F
Taipei, Taiwan
Taipei, Taiwan
Telephone: (02) 772-6492
Telephone: (02) 715-4473
Telex: 23056 CHARLENE
TECA Engineering Company Ltd.
64 TUnhua N. Rd., 4F
IMC Group
Taipei, Taiwan
No. 102, 4F Hao-mei Bldg.
Telephone: (02) 721-1162
Nanking E. Rd. Sec. 5
Telex: 25817 TECACO
disk drive, and a 20-megabyte hard-
disk drive with controller. Its price, in
U.S. dollars, in quantities up to 11
units, is $2165. The LEO AT/XT- 1
model is the same, except it doesn't
include the 1.2 -megabyte floppy-disk
drive: its price is $1995. You can also
buy a LEO AT/PC model for $1270;
this version comes with two 360K-
byte floppy-disk drives, but no hard-
disk drive.
A novel feature of the LEO series is
that, of the five expansion slots on the
main board, two slots accept cards
designed for the IBM PC AT and com-
patibles, while the remaining three
slots are IBM PC XT-compatible. Fur-
thermore, the manufacturer says that
the LEO can run MS-DOS 3.0. These
features really put the LEO into a
class somewhere between the IBM PC
XT and the PC AT; the availability of
an 80286 processor card next year
ought to make the machine even
more versatile.
IBM PC XT AND IBM PC AT
Clones Everywhere
I couldn't even count the companies
that were exhibiting look-alikes for the
Inquiry 96 for End-Users.
<— Inquiry 97 for DEALERS ONLY.
IBM PC PC XT, and PC AT. To give you
an idea of prices, here are some
typical examples.
The model HT-320 computer from
OST-EMPOR Electronics Company
Ltd. is an IBM PC AT-compatible ma-
chine. It includes 640K bytes of
memory on the main board, with
eight expansion slots, a color-graphics
card, keyboard, and a single 1.2-mega-
byte floppy-disk drive. No hard-disk
drive is included. The price for a
single unit is $2050.
TECA Engineering Company Ltd. of-
fers both components and assembled
computers in IBM PC- PC XT- and PC
AT-compatible models. The IBM PC-
compatible version, with dual floppy-
disk drives, 2 56K bytes of memory on
the main board, and a 12-inch mono-
chrome monitor, costs $747. The IBM
PC XT version, including hard-disk
drive and controller, sells for $1100.
An IBM PC AT-compatible version,
with 512K bytes of memory and an
80286 processor, one 1.2 -megabyte
floppy-disk drive, and one 20-mega-
byte hard-disk drive, has a list price
of $2800.
{continued)
K
Number One
in Performance
68010/68000
Coprocessor for
IBM/AT/XT/PC-
8/10/12.5mz No Wait States
$ 139S°°Qly.1
FEATURES
• 1-2 MB RAM (1MB Standard)
• 16K-64KEPR0M
• 2-8 Serial Ports
Async/Sync/Bisync Communications
• Battery-backed Real Time Clock
• Battery-backed 2K-8K RAM
• 2 Parallel Ports
• Memory-mapped Dual-port BUS
• 3-9 Users Per Board (3 Standard)
•Up To 16 Boards Per AT/XT/PC
• Can Operate As Standalone Processor
SOFTWARE
• 0S9 (Powerful UNiX-like Multi-user OS)
• CPM/68K
• Software selectable OS including concurrent
PC D0S/0S-9 or CPM/68K operation
• Support Module for IBM Graphics
• High-speed Local/Global Disk Caching
• Basic. Pascal. Fortran. C. and COBOL
Systems
4704 W JENNIFER. SUITE 105* FRESNO. CA93711
209/276-2345
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 401
HIGH PERFORMANCE
OUTPUT WAS
ONCE A SINGULAR
EXPERIENCE.
That experience was the Datasouth DS 180.
The machine so sophisticated, so reliable, that it won international
acclaim as the printer demanding people demand.
But those demanding people demanded
more. More functions, more applications, the
ability to perform more printing tasks.
Our answer was the DS 220. A multi-mode
that actually outperformed every
other matrix printer in its class.
Then, we brought high per-
formance to the personal computer,
with our own line of Personal
Printers.
Our Daisy Wheel 36 brought
the Datasouth reputation to daisy -
wheel printing.
And our CX and TX models
freed once-captive IBM users
from the need to buy overpriced
IBM printers.
We even improved on the
original, with the new DS 180 Plus and the
new DS 180DD for demand document
applications.
So, what was once a singular ex-
perience is now plural: the Datasouth
f High Performance printer family.
IBM is a registered trademark of International
Business Machines
m--m^m: .*>■?
south
HIGH
PERFORMANC
Datasouth Computer Corporation
Box 240947'Charlotte, NC 28224
704/523-8500-Tlx 6843018 DASOU UW
AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE
THROUGH OUR NETWORK OF
SALES AND SERVICE DISTRIBUTORS
PRINTERS
CALL TOLL FREE:
1-800-222-4528
Ext. 508
402 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 108
Inquiry 360
BYTE JAPAN
The ASI-500 computer from
Aquarius Systems Inc. is fully IBM PC
XT-compatible and runs the govern-
ment-developed ERSO BIOS. It has
640K bytes of on-board memory and
includes a single 320K-byte floppy-
disk drive and a 10-megabyte hard
disk. It comes with MS-DOS 2.11, but
no monitor or color-graphics board is
included. The list price is $1130. A
dual-floppy version with only 128K
bytes of memory sells for only $600.
Autosim Company Ltd. produces
the Touch- 1 computer, an IBM PC XT-
compatible. With 2 56K bytes of on-
board memory, a single 320K-byte
floppy-disk drive, and a color-graphics
card, it sells for $395. A slim-type
10-megabyte hard disk and controller
will set you back an additional $5 50.
The best thing about this computer is
its keyboard (available separately for
$55); 1 think its layout and touch are
about 100 percent better than that of
the standard IBM PC keyboard.
The Kingtech KS-200 portable IBM
PC XT-compatible from K.S. Brother-
box Company Ltd. sells for $750. with
640K bytes of memory, dual 360K-
byte floppy-disk drives, and a built-in
9-inch green monitor. Or you can
order the KS-200A with a hard-disk
drive instead of one of the floppy-disk
drives for $1150. The keyboard is
detached and has the standard IBM
PC layout.
The IMC JR+ from IMC Group is a
laptop portable IBM PC-compatible,
but it doesn't have a built-in display.
It does have 2 56K bytes of memory,
a color-graphics board, and one built-
in 5'/4-inch 320K-byte floppy-disk
drive. The list price is only $475. The
same company makes a portable IBM
PC-compatible machine that includes
a 9-inch green monitor and two
floppy-disk drives for $75 5. It also
offers an IBM PC XT-compatible ma-
chine with a 10-megabyte hard disk
and 2 56Kbytesof memory for $1055,
or with 640K bytes of memory for
$1 120. IMC Group uses a proprietary
BIOS that was developed in the U.S.
Software Piracy Close-up
Regular readers of this column know
that my computer is a Fujitsu FM-16/3,
which is not at all IBM PC-compatible.
In fact. 1 run the CP/M-86 operating
system, not MS-DOS, so I have no
need for IBM PC software. Neverthe-
less, having heard so many rumors
about pirate software shops in Taiwan,
1 decided to check it out myself.
One shop measured up to my worst
expectations. Its catalog consists of a
list of over 300 well-known software
packages, including Lotus's 1-2-3 and
Symphony, Ashton-Tate's Framework,
and numerous compilers, spread-
sheets, word processors, and other
application programs marketed by
major companies in the U.S. and
throughout the world. The store also
offers hundreds of books, including
manuals for the software it sells. All
of this is illegal, all of it is pirated. The
software is sold for $10 per disk. I
asked to see three well-known pro-
grams; they were brought out of the
storeroom and demonstrated. Not
one of the disks had a label from the
original manufacturer. Since I was
testing three disks, I was offered a dis-
count: three disks for $20. The sales-
person said, "Please wait a moment;
we'll copy these right now," and pro-
ceeded to do just that. I couldn't resist
the temptation to ask, "How is it that
you can offer such expensive software
for such a low price?" The salesper-
son confided to me. "I think this is a
little bit illegal. You should hide these
from Customs when you go to the
airport."
Don't write and ask me the address
of the shop; with any luck, by the time
you read this the Taiwanese govern-
ment will have closed down the oper-
ation. In the meantime, the only thing
1 can say to U.S. software suppliers is
that sending software to Taiwan may
be issuing a license to steal. If I were
a major software company, I'd con-
sider hiring a permanent representa-
tive in Taiwan just to file complaints
against software pirates.
Coming Up
Next month I'll take a look at new
models of the NEC PC-9801 series. I'll
also discuss the DynaMac and some
software that bridges the East-West
language gap. ■
h
l~-
*' s
Number One
in Performance
Z80H
IBM/AT/XT/PC- 8mz
No Wait States
FEATURES
• 64K-256KRAM
•2K-8KEPR0M/StaticRam
• 2 Serial Ports
Async/Sync/Bisync Communications
• Real Time Clock
• Memory-mapped Dual-port BUS
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•Up To 32 Boards Per AT/XT/PC
• Can Operate As Standalone Processor
• Less Than Full Size Board
(will fit other compatables.)
SOFTWARE
• ZP/M tm CP/M Emulation Software
(Supports Most CP/M Software)
• Multiuser Capability if Used As A
Slave Processor
Systems
4704 W. JENNIFER. SUITE 105* FRESNO. CA 93711
209/276-2345
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 403
Ssmco 9o<wnfui<te/i jHa/iAe^^na 9P 9D&nA€tM€vnfo
SG-10 . . $208.00
AXIOM SEIKOSHA
GP550AT (Atari)
GP550CD (C-64
GP700AT (Atari)
GP700AP (Apple)
ELITE5CD (C
222
222
439
439
229
C. ITOH
8510AP+ 299
1550P 437
1550BP 437
1550EP 437
1550BCD 489
F10-40 869
FlO-55 1039
7500AP 204
75O0AR 244
TOSHIBA
P 1 340 557
SAVE ™ PRINTERS
CARDCO
32K BUFFER (C-64)
CORONA
LP300 Laser Printer 2686
200361 Toner Cartridge 89
EPSON
FXB5 (New)
LX80
FX185 (New) ... .
LX90 (New)
SO2000 (New)
JX80
Homewnter 10
CR-20-Atari
CR-220C-64
DX-10 (New)
DX-20 (New)
HS-80 (New)
LQ1500P
LQ1500S
RX-100
FX-100+
333
212
464
226
1555
467
193
153
153
207
297
288
975
1039
356
CALL
CITIZEN
MSP-10 269
MSP-15 358
MSP-20 337
MSP-25 495
Sheetfdr (10/20). 189
Sheettdr (15/25) 199
OKIDATA
Qkimate 10 179
Okimate 20 CALL
182 . .. 21*
192 348
193 ..... 563
92P 349
93P 566
84P 645
92 Imagewnter 349
•IBM versions also
BROTHER
HR-15XL-P
HR-15XL-S
HR-35P
HR-35S
2024L-P
M1009-P
359
359
839
839
949
189
JUKI
Juki 6100 347
RS232 Serial Board 55
6100 Tractor 119
6100 Sheet Feeder 209
Juki 6300 757
LEGEND
880 ^86
1080 222
1380 262
1385 296
DIGITAL DEVICES
16K BUFFER 75
32K BUFFER 89
64K BUFFER 125
DIABLO
025 549
630API 1599
630ECS 1759
D801F 2395
P32CQ1 699
P38 1 749
C150 . 999
1091 ... $233.00
PANASONIC
1091 233
3131 (NEW)
1092
1093
3151 Letter
4K Buffer
373
426
426
65
SILVER REED
EXP400
EXP500
EXP550
EXP770
249
295
399
749
STAR MICRONICS
SG-10 208
SG-15
SD-10
SD-15
SR-10
SR-15
Powertype
SB-10
SG-10C-64 (NEW)
.373
.336
442
483
583
303
CALL
CALL
MONITORS
TAXAN
115 12 G'eeen Composite
116 12 Amber Composite
121 12" Green TTL
122 12" Amber TTL
220 14" Color Composite
. 410 12" RGB Hi Res IBM
420 12" RGB Supei Hi IBM
440 12" RGB Ultra Hi Res
Tilt Stana
ZENITH
ZVM 122A Amber
ZVM 123G Green
ZVM 124 Amber IBM
ZVM 131 Color
ZVM 133 RGB
ZVM 135 Composite
ZVM 136 Hi Res Color
1220 1239 1240
MJ-10 Composite
MJ 22 RGB
AMDEK
300 Green
300 Amber
310 Amber IBM
Color 300 Audio
Color 500 Composite
Color 600
Color 700
Color 710
CALL
CALL
135
145
259
329
409
555
35
75
75
129
275
389
449
589
CALL
TEKNIKA
179
255
128
155
234
369
397
495
569
PANASONIC
DT1300D 13" RGB/Composite
0TM140 14" RGB/Composite
DTH103 10" RGB Hi Res
DTS101 10" Composite
DT10OOG 10" RGB
TX12H3P 12- Coky
TR120M1PA 12" Green
TR120MBPA 12" Amber
TR122M9P 12" Green IBM
TR122MYP 12" Amber IBM
247
329
395
175
'66
419
!09
'09
148
148
SAKATA
SG 1000 12" Green 99
SA 1000 12" Amber 109
SG 1500 12" Green TTL 119
SA 1500 12" Amber TTL 129
SC 100 13" Color Comp 209
SC 200 13" RGB 389
STS1 Tilt Stand 29
NEC
JB-1260 Green
JB-1201 Green
JC 1215 Color
JC 1216 RGB
JC 1 460 Color
JB 1205 Amber
95
135
235
375
265
139
X-TRON
Comcolor I Composite Green 177
PRINCETON GRAPHICS
MAX-12 Amber 185
HX-12 RGB 465
SR-12 RGB 595
MODEMS
HAYES
Smaftrnodern 300
Smartmodem 1200
Smartmodem 12006
Smartmodem 2400
Micromodem HE
Westndge (C-64)
Mrtey Mo Modem
CompuServe
ANCHOR
Volksmodem
Volksmodem 12
Mark 12 . .
RACAL-VADIC
133
377
347
S98
135
2400PC
2400PA
2400V
1200PC
300V
300 PC
George Software
549
799
559
329
205
199
69
TELE LEARNING
Total Telecommunications
(C-64) 29.95
AP-250 (300 Baud Apple) 69.95
IB-250 (300 Baud IBM) 69.95
NOVATION
IBM 300/1200 MS-DOS ext 319
IBM 300/1200 CPM-86ex1 319
IBM 300/1200.7400 ext 529
IBM 300/1200/2400 MS-P0S 579
IBM MS-DOS int 325
IBM CPM-86 int 325
Macmodem 300/1 200 315
Macmodem 300/1 200/2400 585
Apple Cat II 219
Upgiade Apple Cat II 225
Cat 300 Acoustic 1 39
J Cat RS232 89
MICROBITS
i06dModem 57
DRIVES
INDUS
GT ATARI 215
GT COMMODORE 235
COMTEL
Enhancer 2000 (c-64)
TYMAC
MOM40 3' i Apple Dove 640K
MSD
SD1 Drive (C-64) 229
SD2 Drive (C-64) 469
DISKETTES
DENNISON
ELEPHANT 5V« " SSSD
ELEPHANT 5V„" SSDD
ELEPHANT 5V4" DSDD
PREMIUM 5V„" SSDD
PREMIUM 5V«" DSDD
11 99
1299
1499
13 99
1599
SKC 5V«"
SKC 5V«"
(Box 10)
SUNKYONG
SSDD
DSDD
5'V MD1
5' 4 MD2
MAXELL
13 99
1999
5V4"
5V4"
5V4'
5'/4'
VERBATIM
SSDD
DSDD
BONUS
SSDD
DSDD
.1399
1999
999
1299
IBM-PC COMPATIBLE
* LOTUS
Lotus 1-2-3 309.00
Symphony 439.00
*QUADRAM
Quad Jr Exp Chassis. 519.00
Quad Jr. Exp. Memory. ...209.00
Quad Memory J r 209.00
'LEADING EDGE
Nutshell 69.95
LEWP Basic 65.00
LEWP Merge Print 99.00
LE Spell Correction 169.00
OMEGA
10 Meg Bernoulli Box (IBM). .1899
5 Meg Bernoulli Box (MAC). 1499
ITT XTRA XP Pereonal Computer!
'256K 2 Drive System CALL
'256K 10 Meg Hard System Call
AT&T
Safari 7300
6300
TANDON
'320K 0/0 v„" Drive
CALL
CALL
AST
Six Pack Plus 64K CALL
Mega Plus II 64K 269
Memory 128K (mega) 199
Memory 256K (Mega) 335
Mono-Graph Plus 339
Advantage-AT-128K 389
TOLL FREE 1-800-233-8760
Inquiry 2I9
TO ORDER
ft
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800-233-8760
Or lind order to
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Mac Communications
Color Graphics
Atari 520ST
Amiga
SideKick
Mac Books
by Bruce Webster
ACCORDING TO WEBSTER
Microcomputer Color
Graph ics~Observations
Bruce Webster is a consulting
editor for BYTE. He can be con-
tacted do BYTE. POB 1910.
Orem. UT 84057.
or on BIX as bwebster.
I'm sure most of you haven't the
slightest interest in my personal affairs,
but I'm about to move to another state,
and Jerry Pournelle's appellation for his
chaotic home fits my own house (not to
mention my life) all too well. As a result,
much of the software waiting to be exam-
ined waits still, and hardware shipments
have stopped altogether until I have a new
address at which to receive them. Your pa-
tience is requested and appreciated.
Those of you who have written me
physical letters deserve a special public
apology. From where I am sitting, I can turn
my head and see a 2-inch stack of letters
awaiting answers, some of which are older
than 1 can comfortably think about. My goal
is to answer them before The Big Move next
week and thereafter stay on top of things,
answering all letters promptly. And, as my
friend's grandmother says, if you believe
that, I'll tell you another one.
Mac Communications Software
As you may recall, last month's column was
written on the Macintosh for the first time
(using Microsoft Word). Well. I'm back on
the Compaq this month. Not because of
word-processing problems on the Mac;
even now. I find myself reaching for the
mouse. No, the problem lies with the only
telecom program I have for the Mac:
MacTerminal. I had a very difficult time do-
ing a simple ASCII upload of my column to
BIX (BYTE Information Exchange), mostly
due to the lack of a "wait for prompt''
feature in MacTerminal. That, of course, was
on top of many other deficiencies and
proved to be the proverbial backbreaking
straw. The real culprits are ASCII Pro and
Crosstalk, the two telecom programs I use
on the Compaq. Both can do so much that
MacTerminal seems primitive by
comparison.
After asking around, I've found that the
Mac package most often recommended is
Red Ryder, a shareware package available
through many users groups and bulletin
boards. I hope to have a copy by next
month, in which case I'll probably switch
back to the Mac for writing. Hayes Smart-
corn II for the Mac also looks good, al-
though I've heard that it doesn't work well
with the Apple modem. You should use a
Hayes Smartmodem with it. I'll try to have
more detailed reports on both these pack-
ages in the next month or so; in the mean-
time, do not buy MacTerminal.
Color Graphics versus
Monochrome
Many rumors are now surfacing about
future Mac products. Supposedly, Apple
will be releasing a Big Mac by the time this
column sees print; said Mac will reported-
ly come with 1 megabyte of RAM (random-
access read/write memory), the new 128K-
byte ROM (read-only memory), and a dou-
ble-sided (800K. bytes) disk drive, all in the
standard Mac box. More intriguing is the
talk about Carla, a 2 -megabyte Mac with
dual 68000 processors, slots, and different-
size monitors (including a 9- by 12-inch full-
page version). And it just possibly may have
color output. Of course, rumors and sight-
ings of a color Mac have been around
almost as long as the machine itself. Steve
lobs asserted last January that no color Mac
would surface for a few years at least, until
such time as a color equivalent of the Laser-
Writer was feasible. He contended that
color wasn't that important and said the
Mac community was far better off working
toward higher-resolution monochrome dis-
play and reproduction.
There haven't been too many issues on
which I've agreed with Jobs, but this is one.
The following appeared in my review of the
Macintosh in the August 1984 issue of
BYTE:
"Some criticism has been made about the
lack of a color-graphics capability. Frankly,
I am unconvinced of its necessity. Most ap-
plications I have seen use color graphics as
{continued)
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 405
Inquiry 14
A Powerful, Practical Computer
at an Economical Price.. .and IBM' XT Compatible
AN! PC2
Your Price
$995
////.;
FEATURING
M 640K 8 Slot Motherboard
m 8088 16 BIT 4.77 MHZ Processor
M 135 Watt Power Supply
M IBM- PC/XT Compatible
■ 5150 Compatible Keyboard
■ Accessory Slots Compatible with
IBM' Plug-in Cards
M Two Toshiba 360 Kb Disk Drives
■ 8087 Co-processor (optional)
m PGS MAX 12 Amber Hl-Res Monitor
iruns with color card alsol
■ Warranty 1 20 Days Parts and Labor
10 MB Hard Disk Subsystem S395 ■ 20 MB Hard Disk Subsystem S495
■ AH other configurations available
Alphanumeric International, Inc.
14060 Gannet Street ■ Suite 1-103 ■ Sanfa Fe Springs. CA 90670
213/921-8689 ■ Telex 181149 West LSA
Dealer Inquiries Invited
Quotes tor large quantities invited.
'IBM is a trademark of International Business Machines
ir
*\
DESMETC $150
Macintosh ,m Development Package
Runs on both128K and 512K Macintosh
Full K&R Compiler — IEEE Floating Point
>450 Function Macintosh ROM Library
Assembler, Linker & Librarian
>120 Function STDIO Library
Machine Code Debugger
Source Code Editor
"Shell" interface
300 Page manual
RAM Disk
Published and sold direct to the end-user by:
C Ware Corporation
P.O. Box C, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
(408) 720-9696
"Price includes domestic shipping. Canada $5. Europe/Asia
add $20. Call to charge by VISA, MC or AMEX. Street
address: 505 W. Olive, #767, Sunnyvale, CA 94086.
Macintosh is a trademark licensed to Apple Computer, Inc.
ACCORDING TO WEBSTER
The 68000 processor in the
Mac has to do everything
and quickly becomes the
bottleneck for the system.
a substitute for detail, and the Mac can give you lots of
detail."
Since then, little has happened to change my mind; the
Mac, with its square pixels and amazing graphics routines,
still has the cleanest, most professional display of any
microcomputer I've worked with. But technology is start-
ing to catch up with Apple, and crisp, fast color graphics
in equal or higher resolution are showing up on the Atari
520ST, the Amiga, and some of the new graphics boards
for the IBM PC. And while these newcomers don't have
software libraries anywhere close to the Mac Toolbox, they
do have greater hardware support, resulting in very fast
display updates. By contrast, the 68000 processor in the
Mac has to do everything and quickly becomes the bot-
tleneck for the system.
Still, a monochrome display has many advantages over
color graphics. It is usually easier to read than a color dis-
play of equal resolution. As Jobs noted, image-manipula-
tion and -reproduction technology (printers, digitizers, etc.)
is more advanced for monochrome displays, and "what
you see is what you get" displays are easier to support.
Monochrome displays require less memory than color dis-
plays of equal or even less resolution, something impor-
tant for a machine (the Mac) still officially limited to 512K
bytes. Finally, high-resolution monochrome monitors are
cheaper than equivalent-resolution color monitors.
A Brief Survey of Graphics
The development of graphics technology is itself fascinat-
ing. The first real breakthrough was the Apple II, which
offered graphics— and color graphics, at that— as a stan-
dard feature. I still have the lune 1977 issue of BYTE with
Apple's first ad in it, and I can still remember the feelings
of computer lust it stirred in me. None of the mainframes
and minis I was working with at school had color graphics,
and here was a microcomputer that could do it all.
Unfortunately, the graphics on the Apple were not par-
ticularly easy to use (and still aren't, although they are well
documented now, eight years later). The high-resolution
graphics mode— 280 by 192 pixels (monochrome) or 140
by 129 pixels (six colors)— used a bizarre mapping scheme,
reputedly chosen by Steve Wozniak to save a few TTL
(transistor-transistor logic) gates in the design. And the
display RAM itself was fixed right in the middle of the
memory map. This wasn't much of a problem when RAM
prices were high— that same ad offers 16K. bytes of RAM
(continued)
406 BYTE- DECEMBER
What every Apple 11+ and
user shoula ask before
ivin2the"Sider"10MBhar<
When a company offers a superior qual-
ity 10 megabyte Winchester hard disk
for only $595, it's bound to raise a few
eyebrows . . . and a lot of questions. The
fact is, you're probably already wonder-
ing "Can I really get a 10 megabyte hard
disk that's reliable for only $595 ?" The
answer is: ABSOLUTELY. . .when you
choose the Sider from First Class
Peripherals.
What's so great about the Sider?
For starters, the Sider lets you boot your
Apple 11+ or He directly off the hard
disk— unlike some other Winchester
subsystems. Rebooting is also trouble-
free. And the disk is partitionable,
allowing you to allocate space to four
operating systems on the same disk.
The Sider supports: Apple DOS 33; Pro
DOS™; Apple Pascal; andCP/M®
What's more, a small "footprint"
lets you incorporate the compact Sider into
your existing computer set-up with ease.
In addition, with the Sider, you not
only pay far less for the subsystem, you also
save money on installation. Because, unlike
other 10 MB systems that require the
purchase of expensive "extras," the Sider
is plug and play. Everything you need is
provided, including cables, host adaptor,
installation software and manual.
What makes it so reliable?
To start, the Sider is manufactured, and
sold exclusively, by First Class Peripherals,
an innovative computer company which is
backed by Xebec. The computer industry's
leading manufacturer of disk controllers,
Xebec has over a decade of experience
serving customers like IBM, Toshiba, Texas
Instruments and Hewlett Packard. It's this
kind of expertise that helps assure the
Sider's performance.
Special design features further en-
hance reliability. The Sider's controller is
the field-proven, industry standard Xebec
S1410A. And Xebec's 3200 drive tester, the
Apple and Pro DOS are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
CP/M is a registered trademark of Digital Research, Inc.
"Only s 595?"
October l , 1985 through December 31 , 1985
toughest in the industry, ensures that the
Sider will operate reliably. One more assur-
ance of the $595 Sider's quality: it's UL
Approved and FCC Class B rated.
But why is it only $595?
You pay less for the Sider than for other 10
MB hard disks simply because you're pay-
ing for the superior quality components
inside the unit, not for a lot of retail over-
head costs. Since First Class Peripherals
sells direct, you avoid dealer and dis-
tribution expenses, and pay only for
the product.
What about a guarantee?
Like many experienced Apple users, you
may be reluctant to buy a hard disk
priced at only $595 without first seeing
for yourself how it performs. That's why
First Class Peripherals offers you a re-
assuring, money-back guarantee that
eliminates any risk on your part. Simply
order the Sider and use it for 15 days.
Then, if you're not entirely satisfied,
return it and receive a full refund— no
questions asked.
The Sider also comes with a full
one-year limited warranty. Plus, there's
a convenient, toll-free hotline you can
call anytime you have a technical or
service question, or need help.
Don't delay.
Order the Sider now.
To receive the Sider 10 megabyte Win-
chester hard disk subsystem for only $595,
simply order using the coupon below. For
faster service, order by phone and charge
to your VISA, MasterCard or American
Express. (You can also call us if you have
any questions or technical concerns about
the Sider. We'll see you get the help you
need.) Call toll-free:
1 800 538-1307
Extension 205
I I lCS, please send me the Sider, including half-height 10 megabyte Winchester hard disk drive.
Apple adaptor board, cable, complete installation software and documentation.
I prefer to pay as follows:
□ I've enclosed my check or money order for
$595* + $15 shipping and handling, payable
to First Class Peripherals.
□ Please bill the following credit card account
for $595* + $15 shipping and handling:
□ VISA □ MasterCard □ American Express
Name
Address
cm
State
Zip
Card*
Exp. Date
Signature
•Residents of CA, NVand PA, please add appropriate sales lax.
Telephone (area code)
Mail to:
■FIRST
I PERIPHERALS
■CLASS
■S579 Highway 50 East
Carson City, NV 89701
205
Inquiry 141
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 407
Inquiry I 72
9-TRACK MAG. TAPE SUBSYSTEM
FOR THE IBM PC/XT/AT
$ 4757
For information interchange, backup and archival storage,
IBEX offers a 9-track, IBM format-compatible V4" magnetic
tape subsystem for the IBM PC, featuring:
■ 42 M-Bytes on a single
reel.
■ IBM format 1600 cpi.
■ Software for PC-DOS,
MS-DOS.
Write, phone or TWX
lor information
IBEX
IBEX COMPUTER CORP
20741 Marilla St.
Chatsworth,CA 91311
(818) 709-8100
TWX 910-493-2071
COMPETITIVE EDGE
P.O. Box 556 — Plymouth, Ml 48170 — 313^51-0665
Compupro", LOMAS, EARTH, TELETEK
S-100 CIRCUIT BOARDS
CompuPro 286 CPU
$671.
Lomas 286 8MHZ
£821
Color Magic 32K
$556
CompuPro SPUZ "8MHZ
296.
Lomas 8086
420
Lomas 10MHz8086
520
CompuPro 8085 88 "
263.
Lomas Octaport '" 8Senal
320.
Lomas 4 serial
200
CompuPro Disk 1A "'
371.
Lomas LDP" 72
206.
Lomas Color Magic'" 16K
476
CompuPro Disk 3"
446.
Lomas 256K Dram
358.
Lomas MSDOS"2. 11
200
CompuPro Ram 22 '"
446.
Lomas 51 2K Dram
448.
CompuPro MDnve H *<51 2K
446
CompuPro Ram 23"
188.
Lomas Ram 67"
599.
CompuPro 10 3 8 port
371
CompuPro Ram23 128
263.
Lomas Hazitall '
244.
Toletek SBC 16MHz 128
3~5
CompuPro CPU Z '
189.
Thunder 186"
895.
Turbodos " for Teletek
650
CompuPro CCP M'816'
300.
Lomas CCP 'M" 86'"
280.
Lomas 2 Megabyte
Syslem Support One "
263.
CompuPro 1/04
245.
Ram-(2048K) just $821.
Teietek HD
375.
Sysiemasterll'
795.
Earth Turbomaster
$795
Teletek Systemaster
495.
IT. 1024x1024 Brd
$995
Earth Computer TURBO SLAVE 1 8MHz 1 28K $395.
Turbo Slave I runs with Teletek, North Star Horizon. Advanced Digital and Others under Turbodos"
SYSTEMS
CompuPro 85 88.256K.CDOS
SS1
IO 4.2-96TPI DRS, 15 Slot
$3095
CompuPro 85 88.256K.CDOS
SSI.I'O 4.1-96TPI.20MB. 15 Slot
$4295
CompuPro 286, SPUZ, 40MB
SSI.
13, CDOS. 15 Slot, 30
amp PS
$6995
286, 1024K. 20MB, AutoCad 2 System — Ready to Run
$8395
Lomas 286.1024K.20MB HD.1
-5",CDOS. 6 SERIAL, 2 Par,
15 Sloi
$4995
Lomas Thunder 186. 256K. 20 MB HD, 1-5 M . CDOS, 4 Slot
$2895
Teletek 8MHz Master. 4-8MH2
128KSLVS, 1-5". 20 MB HC
,TDOS
$4995
AT CLONE, 286, FAST 20 MB HD,
enhanced
$3695
JPGRADE YOUR IBM'
PC"!!
MONITORS
GRAPHIC BOARDS
HARD DRIVE KITS
Amde»310A
Sisa
Hercules Monochrnme
$299
PC 10MB PC
$595
Hercules Color Card
S159
PC 21MB PC
$695
PnncetonColor HR-12
S4B9
Tecmar Graphics Maste'
S449
AT 21 MB AT
S795
Princeton Color SH- 1 2
$649
Paradise Graphics
$279
AT 36MB AT
$1295
286 ACCELERATOR
STBGraphu II
$279
AT 70MB AT
$2295
Turbo Accel- 2866MHZ
$895
Hercules Compatible MONO
$135
AT 80MB AT
$3295
MULTI-FUNCTION BOARDS
FLOPPY DRIVES
AT 119MB AT
$3595
AST6Pak64K
$245
TEAC1 2HTFD55B
$119
PC Flpy Controller
$60
Quadram E«p,vnded Quadboard OK
$219
Mitsubishi 96 TPt
$125
AT SER POR
Tecmar Captain 64K
$199
5" DSDD Color Diskettes
$ 21
ALL PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND STOCK ON HAND
CompuPro is a Regislered Trademark ol tfiasvrt, CPU Z, Disk 1A, Disk 3. IMerfacer 3. Interfacer 4,, CPU 286, CPU 8085
System Support 1 MDRIVE-H. Ram 22. Flam 23 are Irademarks or regislered trademarks ol Viasyn CP'M 2 2. CCP'M.
tegistered Irademarks ol Digital Research Inc MSDOS is a regislered trademark o* Microsoft, Syslemasler & Systemaster II
registered trademarks ol Teletek Enterprises Turbodos is registered trademark ol Software 2000 IBM is a regisier
ol International Business Machines AutoCad 2 is a registered trademark ol AuloDesk Inc
ACCORDING TO WEBSTER
for $600— but once 32 K- and 48K-byte systems became
popular, the location became one more problem to work
around.
The Apple II established built-in color graphics as a stan-
dard for personal computers; the Atari 400/800 and the
Commodore 64 built upon that standard, adding hardware
support, relocatable video RAM, missiles and sprites, and
other features. Programmers on these machines had a
much easier time of it. and some impressive programs
(read: games) were produced. However, because of the
cellular nature of the graphics on these systems, most of
the programs had a "chunky" look to them and were not
as impressive as the most advanced programs (read:
games) on the more primitive Apple II. Both machines sold
well but, with limited expansion capability, tended to be
dead ends for their owners.
When IBM decided to get into the micro world, it wisely
followed the example of the Apple II and put expansion
slots into the machine. Then, for some incomprehensible
reason, the people at IBM did not make graphics a stan-
dard part of their system; in fact, they did not even make
an ASCII text display a standard feature. Instead, they of-
fered two incompatible display cards: one for mono-
chromatic text display, the other for color text and
graphics. And, just to add to the excitement, they designed
their cards and monitors such that if you plugged your
monochrome monitor into your color card, you stood a
good chance of burning out your monitor.
In retrospect, a couple of reasons suggest themselves
for this design philosophy, nbne of them flattering to IBM.
Possibly, IBM was unwilling to give its customers a stan-
dard graphics capability (or even a standard ASCII display,
for crying out loud) but wanted to charge extra for these
"options." Or perhaps IBM was somehow afraid that mak-
ing graphics (especially color graphics) a standard feature
would "lower" its system to the level of the Apple/Atari/
Commodore computers, which most people viewed as
game machines.
Whatever the reasons, the results are obvious today: a
wide variety of display cards, with varying levels of com-
patibility between each other and your software. IBM has
gotten right in there with the rest of them, not only offer-
ing the monochrome (text) display adapter and the color-
graphics card, but also the Extended Graphics Adapter
(EGA) and the very expensive Professional Graphics Sys-
tem. And if you want clear, crisp text and color graphics
on the same system, be prepared to do some juggling of
both software and hardware. (I haven't even mentioned
the problems of conflicting parallel ports on different
display cards.)
On top of this, the standard IBM graphics aren't very
exciting. You have a few different resolutions to choose
from; the most common are 640 by 200 pixels (mono-
chrome), 320 by 200 pixels (monochrome), and 320 by
200 pixels (four colors). The RAM-to-display mapping isn't
that bad, but the color selection is disappointing: one of
[continued)
408 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 67
COMPUTER HUT
COMPARE
OUR
SERVICE & PRICE'
IBM-PC, XT & AT
CALL
comPAa
Portables, Deskpros, 286 Models . . . CALL
ITT
XTRA 2DR, 256K $1395
DISK DRIVES
landon TM100-2 DS/DD $109
TEAC FD 55-B Slimline $115
TWfX. drives w/logo $129
HARD DISKS/TAPE
MAYNARD ELECTRONICS
Hard disks & tape back-ups complete with
cortt. & cables.
WSO 10, 20, 30 meg from $675
MaynStream Portable tape backup &
Portable hard disk systems CALL
L'JAEGA Bernoulli 20 Meg $2495
ALLOY full line CALL
IRWIN tape backups from $549
ADD-ON BOARDS
QUADRAM
Quadboard OK exp. to 384K
Microfazer 64K parallel
SixPak Plus 64K
I/O mini Ser Port & Clock
Advantage 128K
IRMA board
ORCHID
PCturbo-186 w/128K
HERCULES
HiRes Mono Graphics
Color Graphics w/par port .
PARADISE
Modular Graphics
5-Pack OK exp. to 384K . .
PERSYST
Mono Card w/par port
TECMAR
Graphics Master
Maestro 128K
EAST COAST
$219
$229
$239
$139
$399
$895
$625
$309
$175
$269
$159
$189
$469
$399
MODEMS
©Hayes
Smartmodem 1200
Smartmodem 1200B w/smartcom
Smartmodem 2400
NOVATION
Smart Cat Plus w/MITE
$399
$369
$639
$299
PRINTERS
EPSON
FX-85, FX-185, LX-80, JX-80, RX-100, LQ-1500,
DX-10, DX-20, HI-80 plotter, HS-80 ink jet -
BEST DEAL — GUARANTEED!
brother
HR-10 $299 HR-15XL $369
HR-25 $569 HR-35 $749
Twinwriter 5 $899
FACIT CALL
E£l HEWLETT PACKARD . CALL
OKfDATA
182, 192, 93, 193, 84, 2410 . BEST PRICES
SEC
2050 $699 3550 $1095
8850 $1549 elf 360 $459
Pinwriter P2 . . $549 P3 $775
TOSHIBA
P351 $1195 P1340 $595
ACCESSORIES CALL
SPECIALS
PARADISE SYSTEMS
MODULAR GRAPHICS CARD
Runs all IBM Color graphics
software on IBM Mono &
Color Monitors $249
5-PACK w/OK-expandable to
384K, Ser. Port, clock, Ram disk
& print spooler $139
ASK ABOUT OUR
REPAIR SERVICES.
COMPUTER HUT
OF NEW ENGLAND INC.
101 Elm St. Nashua, NH 03060
(603) 889-7625
For Orders Only — (800) 525 5012
CANADA
MICROCONTEXT
AUTHORIZED DEALER
4847 Ave Du Pare
Montreal Que H2V4E7.
(514) 279-4595
MONITORS
AMDEK
Video 300G . . $129 300A $139
Video 310A . . . $179
PGS
HX12 $479 HX-12E $559
MAX-12E $189 SR-12 $599
SOFTWARE
WORDPROCESSING
MS Word .... $239 Multimate . . . CALL
Volkswriter deluxe $159
PFS: Write .... $85 WordPerfect . . $239
WordStar propak $299
Wordstar 2000 $259
DATABASE / INTEGRATED
dBase III CALL Framework CALL
Lotus 1-2-3 . . . $299 Symphony .... $429
Jazz CALL
RBase 5000 . . $369 Cornerstone . . $299
BUSINESS / ACCT.
Microsoft Project, Chart $159
Harvard Total Project Mgr $289
PFS: File, Plan, Graph $85
BPI Accounting CALL
UTILITIES / COMPILERS
Sideways $39 Smartcom II ... $99
Superkey $55 Norton Utilities. .$65
Sidekick NP . . . $55 Turbo Pascal . . . $49
MS Basic $239 MS Fortran .... $219
LIFEBOAT Lattice C $299
STARBRIDGE DOS $39
TRAINING /OTHER
ATI TRAINING POWER
Teach yourself: Lotus 1-2-3, dBase III,
Multimate, Jazz $49
ATI SKILL BUILDER
How to use: PC DOS, IBM PC, Database,
Wordprocessing $39
Typing Tutor III .
Flight Simulator
$39 Gato $29
$39
AND LOTS MORE
ANY PRODUCT NOT
LISTED? CALL
MID-WEST
COMPUTER HUT»c
524 S. Hunter
Wichita, Kansas 67207
(316) 681-2111
For Orders Only — (800) 572 3333
All products usually in stock for immediate shipment and carry full manufacturers' warranty. Price subject to change — this ad prepared two months in advance. We honor per-
sonal checks — allow 20 days to clear. COD up to $500. Visa, MasterCard add 2%. For shipping & insurance add 2% or $6.00 min. for small items and $12. min. for monitors,
printers, etc. We accept company checks and P.O.'s from Fortune 1000 Companies.
1285
IBM is a trademark of IBM Corp.
Return authorization and order status call information line
Inquiry 75
©1985 AT&T Information Systems. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machine Corp.
AOTfe 6MALL
BUSINESS
CONNECTION.
Take your pick
from our
family tree.
Whether you're looking
for the ideal telephone
Sr system, computer, or FAX
machine for your small
business, there's a
connection.
They're all members
of AT&T's Small Busi-
ness Connection— a full family
of products and services
specifically created to help you save
time, effort and money.
It's easy to connect with the
Small Business Connection. Simply
dial 1 800 247-7000, our hotline, and
you'll immediately be in touch with
a specialist trained to understand
the needs of small businesses. A
specialist who'll work with you to
tailor an equipment and service
package that fits your individual
needs perfectly.
While you're on the line,
you'll learn about AT&T's
hot line of products. Like the
MERLIN™ Communications
Systemwith features like conference"
calling, which lets you conduct time-
saving meetings over the phone. Or
speed dialing, which instantly puts you
in touch with key people. Features you
can program and reprogram to meet
your changing needs.
When it comes to surefire products,
there's nothing like our full line of com-
puters, including AT&T's 3B Computers,
and our new popular AT&T UNIX™ PC.
The UNIX PC delivers the
kind of power, speed and
exceptional ease of use few
PCs can match. Not to
mention AT&T's PC 6300.
It's fully compatible with the
IBM PC yet twice as fast
Get the total
telephone for
small business.
410 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
AT&T GIVES YOU
ONE NUMBER TO
REMEMBER FOR
UNFORGETTABLE
PRODUCTS AND
SERVICE.
This number connects you to
the office in your area.
and more expandable. *—
You'll also get all the facts on the
AT&T FAX 3510D. It's capable of firing
sharp, clear copies of letters, charts or
photos— across town or
across the country— as fast
as 20 seconds a page. Plus
it's industry compatible,
fully portable, and com-
pletely automatic.
Finally, we'll wrap it all
tracts u, a nash up lor you in one of our ser-
with this FAX. . , ,., o
vice packages, like Service-
Plus. This allows you to take care
of all your communication needs with
one call. You can even select one of
several financial plans to meet your
cash flow requirements
Best of all, along with every-
thing else comes all the experi^
ence, resources and know-how
only AT&T can offer.
Use the hotline and call
AT&T's Small Business Connec
tion today. Just dial 1 800 247-7000^
Ext. 204.
You'll be warmly received.
Service-Plus
is just one
of theplusses.
Send stacks of
AT&T
The right choice.
Inquiry 393
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 411
Inquiry 123
THE ONLY THING
YOU NEED NOW IS
FASTER FINGERS
INTRODUCING, SUPERCHARGER™
INCREASE THE SPEED OF YOUR IBM PC AT
REASONABLE COST WHILE MAINTAINING
HARDWARE/SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY.
Plug In installation
Doesn't need an
expansion card slot
Toggle switch for speed
change included
3" x 5" dimension
100% software/hardware
compatable
A clock controller
not a co-processor
Totally user transparent
Nearly doubles
processor speed
s 279.95 Dealer Inquires Invited
DYNATEC SYSTEMS INC.
870 East 9400 South, Ste. 103
Sandy, UT 84070 (801) 572-6867
maxEll
New Lower Price!
SVk" Diskettes
MD-1 Single Sided Double Density
12.25 box of ten
MD-2 Double Sided Double Density
16.75 box of ten
MD-2HD High Density
36.00 box of ten
Single Sided 96TPI
21.50 box of ten
Double Sided 96TPI
25.50 box of ten
Vh" Micro Floppy Disks
MM SS Quad 25.75 box of ten
MF-2 DS Quad 33.75 box of ten
TERMS:
Visa/Mastercard
—COD — Prepaid
Allow 10 days for
personal/ Company
check to clear. Add
53 00 Shipping
cod. add S200.
Texas residents add
5.125% sales tax.
Call for other
Maxell Products
1-800-527 1814
(in Texas 1-512-682-7774)
P.O. BOX 3424— Edinburg, Texas 78540-5424
ACCORDING TO WEBSTER
The IBM PC, XT, and compatibles
allow you 640K bytes of user
memory, and the display— either text
or graphics— doesn't use that up.
four palettes, each with three fixed colors and one user-
selectable (out of a list of 16) background color. However,
as with the Apple II, some ingenious programmers have
managed to get far more out of the IBM PC than IBM put
in. And, of course, there are the advanced and upward-
incompatible graphics-display cards.
About the only commendable feature of the separate
display cards is that they contain their own display RAM,
although the address space had to be allocated within the
8088's 1-megabyte memory map. The IBM PC, XT, and
compatibles allow you 640K bytes of user memory, and
the display— either text or graphics— doesn't use that up.
Apple's people, in designing the Macintosh, reversed
IBM's decisions. They made the Mac a closed box, ignor-
ing the prime reason for the Apple Us continued success
despite its close-to-obsolete technology. But they not only
made a graphics display standard, they made it the focus
of the entire machine. Unlike previous systems that
distinguished between text and graphics display, every-
thing on the Mac was done with graphics, including the
icon-and-menu-based user interface. Adding the black-on-
white display, the square pixels, the graphics routine in
ROM, and a much more sensible RAM-to-screen mapping
scheme, the result was a machine that looked like the ex-
pensive Star systems developed by Xerox, at a fraction of
the price.
The graphics display on the Mac is straightforward in
how it works. The 512- by 342-pixel image is scanned from
left to right, top to bottom, out of the video-RAM area
(called the screen buffer), each bit corresponding to one
pixel. Unlike most graphics systems, a corresponds to
white and a 1 to black. The screen buffer is located near
the top of user RAM, automatically adjusting upward for
128K-byte, 512K-byte and 1-megabyte Macs. And, because
of the extensive routines in ROM, programmers can and
should avoid writing directly into the screen buffer. While
many of Apple's claims about the Mac were hyperbolic,
the Mac did set a new standard for microcomputer dis-
plays. With multiple fonts and styles and Apple printers,
the phrase "what you see is what you get," previously ap-
plied to margin-justifying word processors, took on a
whole new meaning. And for all the criticism of the Mac
interface, it has been quickly adapted to new and existing
systems, indicating that Apple and Xerox must have done
something right.
But graphics displays eat up memory, and the higher
[continued)
412 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 1 14
You would think when IBM needs
EPROM Programmers they would choose
the best and the most expensive.
They don't. They only choose the best.
GTEK.
MODEL 7956 (w/RS-232 option) $1099
MODEL 7956 (stand alone) S 979
GTEK's outstanding Gang Programmer with
intelligent algorithm can copy 8 EPROMS at a
time! Use the 7956 in a production environ-
ment when you need to program a large num-
ber of chips. Programs all popular chips through
the 27512 EPROMS; supports CMOS EPROMS
through the 27C256; supports EEPROMS
through the X2864A; supports Intel s 2764A &
27128A chips. The 7956 will also program
single chip processors.
MODEL 7228 S 599
GTEK's 7228 has all the features of the
7 1 28, plus Intelligent Programming Algorithms!
It supports the newest devices available through
51 2K bits. The 7228 programs 6 times as fast
as standard algorithms. It programs the 2764 in
one minute! Supports CMOS EPROMS through
the 27C256; supports EEPROMS through the
X2864A; supports Intel's 2764A & 27128A chips.
Supports Tektronics. Intel, Motorola and other
formats.
MODEL 71 28 S 429
The 7128 has the highest performance-to-
cost-ratio of any unit It supports the newest
devices available through 256Kbits.
MODEL 7324 $1499
The 7324 has a built-in compiler. It programs
all MMI, National and Tl 20 & 24 pin PALS. It
has non-volatile memory and operates stand-
alone or via RS-232.
MODEL 7322 $1249
Same as Model 7324 but operates only via RS-232.
MODEL 7316 5 749
This PAL PROGRAMMER programs Series 20 PALs. It has a built-in PALASM compiler.
MODEL 7283 $1 199
This BI-POLAR PROM PROGRAMMER programs all popular BI-POLAR PROMS. It operates
stand-alone (for production) or RS-232 (for development).
MODEL 705 S 299
68705V3, R3, P3 PROGRAMMER
EPROM, PROM & PAL
PROGRAMMERS
— These features are standard from GTEK —
Compatible with all RS-232 serial interface ports • Auto select baud rate • With or without
hand-shaking > Bidirectional Xon/Xoff • CTS/DTR supported • Read pin compatible ROMS • No
personality modules • Intel, Motorola, MCS86 Hex formats • Split facility for 16 bit data paths •
Read program, formatted list commands • Interrupt driven — program and verify real time while
sending data • Program single byte block or whole EPROM • Intelligent diagnostics discern bad
and/or unerased EPROM • Verify erasure and compare commands • Busy light • Complete with
Textool zero insertion force socket and integral 120 VAC power (240 VAC/50Hz available) •
UTILITY PACKAGES
GTEK's PGX Utility Packages will allow you to specify a range of addresses to send to the
programmer, verify erasure and/or set the EPROM type. The PGX Utility Package includes
GHEX, a utility used to generate an Intel HEX file.
PALX Utility Package — for use with GTEK's Pal Programmers— allows transfer of PALASM"
source file or ASCII HEX object code file.
Both utility packages are available for CPM; MS-DOS, - PC-DOS," ISIS" and TRSDOS"
operating systems. Call for pricing.
CROSS ASSEMBLERS
These assemblers are available to handle the 8748, 8751 , Z8. 6502. 68X and other microprocessors.
They are available for CPM and MS-DOS computers. When ordering, please specify processor
and computer types.
ACCESSORIES
Erasers DE4 $80; PE14T $129
C25 $349; C50 $599
U/V Eraser DE-4 $ 80.
Model 7128-L1.L2, L2A
(OEM Quantity) $259.
Model 7128-24 $329.
Cross Assemblers CPM-80 $200.
MSDOS; CPM 86 . $250
PGX Utilities Call for pricing
PALX Call for pricing
RS-232 Cables $ 30
8751 Adapter $174
8755 Adapter $135
48 Family Adapter $ 98
TEK
"All you CPM people
who wanted to move
to IBM, but couldn't...
now you can — and
bring your CPM
software with you!"
' vi
From GTEK, the
leader in devel-
opment hardware
and software,
comes the
CPM user's
dream.
The ma-
jority of ad-
vances being
made in the
computer
industry today are being
made for PC-DOS and MS-DOS machines.
If you are a CPM user who wanted to
convert to these operating systems but didn't
because you had to abandon or rewrite your
CPM programs, now you can make your
move without losing or rewriting a single
program!
The dream from GTEK is a package that
makes your PC-DOS (IBM PC, XT, AT) or
MS-DOS (IBM clones like COMPAQ, Leading
Edge, Televideo) machines think they're being
run by an 8080 or Z80 microprocessor
with CPM!
The GTEK pack-
age contains a
CPEmulator™ and
CPM Conversion
Utility that allows
you to read and
write popular CPM
disk formats such
as Kaypro and
Osborne.
How easy is it to use? Two steps. ( 1 ) Use
the Conversion Utility to copy the CPM
program to an MS-DOS or PC-DOS diskette.
(2) Use the Bind Utility to attach the
CPEmulator to your program. And that's it.
It's ready to run.
You won't see any difference when you
run the CPM program! Now all the work you
did in CPM is still valuable when you change
to your PC-DOS or MS-DOS machine.
And here's the happy ending to the dream.
The CPEmulator is just $199.
Call GTEK's CPM Hotline...
1-601-467-9019
Development Hardware/Software
P.O. Box 289, Waveland, MS 39576
601/467-8048; telex 315-814 (GTEK UD)
, INC.
If you've been using
CPM on any of these
machines you can now
move to PC-DOS or
MS-DOS operating
systems.
Kaypro • Osborne ■ Heath/
Zenith • Radio Shack •
Epson • DEC • IBM • Mor-
row ■ Xerox • HP • Sanyo
• Intertec • Cromenco •
Televideo • Compupro.
GTEK, PALASM, CPM, MS-DOS. PC-DOS. ISIS, TRSDOS. & CPEmulator are registered trademarks.
Inquiry 1 58
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 413
Inquiry 84
DEALERS WELCOME!!
300/1200
99% Hayes compatible
KEEHH3]
' Auto dial, auto answer (tone or pulse)
' 8 status indicators & switch selectable
' Auto speed selection (0-300. 1200 bps)
; Speaker with .olume control 6 M0 NTH WARRANTY ONLY
Aluminum case, w/adaptor
ALPHA CONCORD
MODEM
SEMI-ASSEMBLED
Modem board completely assembled, tested
& guaranteed. 5 minutes assembly.
MODEM
• ••
$179
$140
Add 5%
Shipping Charge
MODEM KIT
$120
10 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE
No refund on shipping charge
Case $110
Keyboard $110
Pnnter/RS232 $120
2M expansion card Seal
AT BAREB0ARD $CALL
AT MOTHERBOARD $900
XT KEYBOARD $70.
MOTHERBOARD
Replacement & 99% compatible
XT or APPLE He
$175
(tested
guaranteed
CONCORD Technology Inc.
Ph. (604) 879-3555 Telex 04-508393 CONCORD
47 W. Broadway. Van., B.C. Canada V5V 1P1
CASE & KEYBOARD FOR He $90.
BEST PRICES on
IBM/APPLE CARDS.
Write for Price List.
DISKS & MORE
CALL FREE 1-800-328-3472
All Prices Per Box of 10 — Min. Order 2 Boxes
5V*" 3Y2" 8"
Diamond"'
SS/DD/RH $9.19
DS/DD/RH 9.99
High Den 29.99
Brown'
SS/DD/RH 11.99
DS/DD/RH 14.99
High Den 31.59
5 1 A"
Maxell SS/DD
SS/DD/RH 12 39 96TPI
DS/DD/RH 16.59 DS/DD
High Den 31.69 96TPI
3M- SS/DD
SS/DD/RH 13 59 96TPI
DS/DD/RH 16 69 DS/DD
High Den 31 79 96TPI
Ring King Storage Units
8"
All Diamond Disks
Come In A Free
Plastic Storage
Case
Head Cleaning
Kits — Clean From
10-260 Times
8.95 to 29.95
SS/DD 24.89
DS/DD 26.89
.., „ HQ SS/SD 19.89
n Rq SS/ 22. 89
SS/DD 23.89
DS/ 35.99
5 09 DS/DD 27.89
3M Data Cartridges
DC-1000 12.61
2.50 + .20 ship DC-300 A 17.85
15.00 + 2.00 ship DC-300 XLP 19.37
DC -600 A 20.60
15 200+ 20 ship 20 - 2.50+ .20 ship DC-300 A 17.85
35 5.99 + 2.00 ship 50 - 15.00 + 2.00 ship DC-300 XLP 19.37
50 8 95 + 2.00 ship 8" DC -600 A 20.60
70 15 22 + 2.00 ship 70 - 23.97 + 3.00 ship Ship 5.00 per 10
. NORTH HILLS CORP INT'L
lA 3564 Rolling View Dr. White Bear Lake MN 55110
1-800-328-3472 MN Call Collect 612-770-0485
All Disks Are 100% Certified - Have A Lifetime Warranty.
All 8" & 5V»" Have Tyvek Envelopes, User Labels, W/P Tabs
TERMS -VISA, MC, Prepaid-MO or Cert. Check, COD Add 3.00
SHIPPING- 514" & 3'/ 2 " - 3.00 per 100 or Fewer
-8" - 4.00 per 100 or Fewer
-Storage Units and Cartridges As Shown
"All Orders Are Shipped In 24 Hrs." "Never Undersold"
Prices Subject To Change - Call For Quantity Prices — Min Order 2 Boxes
ACCORDING TO WEBSTER
the resolution, the more memory needed (for the Mac,
22K bytes located at the top of user RAM). Add to that
the fact that everything done on the Mac is graphics-
based, and Apple should never have released the Mac
as a 1 28K-byte machine incapable of user expansion. Word
has it that lobs was behind both decisions (no slots and
small memory size); his departure has apparently made
it easier for Apple to pursue developments like the Carla
machine, fobs was also against color graphics for the Mac.
and that may be coming as well.
Now. two new systems with advanced built-in color
graphics have hit the market. The Atari 520ST uses 32K
bytes of user RAM for a display with three different resolu-
tions: 640 by 400 pixels with 2 colors, 640 by 200 pixels
with 4 colors, and 320 by 200 pixels with 16 colors. Map-
ping is fairly simple: Each horizontal group of 16 pixels
maps to one, two. or four consecutive 16-bit words, de-
pending upon the resolution currently being used. The
result is a 1-, 2-, or 4-bit value used to index a color table
holding 2. 4, or 16 values. Each color-table entry is 3
nybbles (12 bits) long, 1 nybble each for red, green, and
blue. Only 3 of the 4 bits in each nybble are used, yielding
8 possible values for each color and 512 possible colors.
The video RAM can be relocated to anywhere in memory
on a 2 56-byte boundary.
The graphics on the 520ST are impressive, but there are
a few problems. Like the Mac, the 520ST has no real hard-
ware support for graphics processing, which means the
68000 must do all the work. And, as with the Mac, the
ST's memory cannot be easily expanded, if it can be ex-
panded at all. Also, the video output on the ST can be
accepted safely only by an Atari monitor; the ST senses
which type of monitor is connected and adjusts the out-
put signal accordingly. Non-Atari monitors run the risk of
burnout. (Of course, a standard Mac can't even accept an
external monitor.)
This brings us to Commodore's Amiga, which represents
the state of the art in microcomputer graphics. Like the
ST, the highest resolution is 640 by 400 pixels— but you
can use 16 colors instead of just 2 and select from a palette
of 4096 colors instead of just 512. Low resolution is 320
by 200 pixels with 32 colors, and there are a few resolu-
tions in between. You can redefine the color table and
the horizontal resolution as the beam scans down the
screen, giving you the ability to display hundreds of colors
simultaneously. Video RAM must be located within the
bottom 512K bytes of the memory map. Within there, it
is freely relocatable and switchable; scrolling is done by
incrementing registers rather than having to actually move
data within the RAM. A true bit-plane approach is used,
like many graphics systems for minis and mainframes. (See
the product preview of the Amiga in the August BYTE
Ipage 83| for more details on how bit planes and playfields
work.)
As significant as these features are, the real power of
the Amiga lies in the custom graphics hardware that
[continued)
414 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
With ZIP+4 codes
you can become
a corporate legend
like Robert Turley.
Oaving over $800,000 a
year in mailing costs made
Robert Turley an instant
legend at AT&T's American
Transtech. Mr. Turley modestly
gives much of the credit to Zl P + 4
codes, the Postal Service's com-
puterized sorting system for First-
Class Mail.
"Every month we mail mil-
lions of time-sensitive documents
on behalf of major corporations.
Critical items like dividend checks
and stock certificates. By using
ZIP+4 codes, we can mail these
documents with the most reliable
First-Class Mail service there is.
"The changeover process
was surprisingly easy and eco-
nomical. Our start-up costs were
nominal compared to the savings.
"And best of all, most of these
savings can be passed on to our
customers!"
To find out how ZIP + 4 codes
can address the specific needs of
your business send in the coupon.
For immediate assistance, or
the number of your postal cus-
tomer service representative,
call 1 800 842-9000, ext. 265.
Call or write today. It tf
could be your best chance
HELPING YOU
HELP YOUR BUSINESS.
| Please check your line of business:
□ Insurance, □ Banking, □ Manufacturing
□ Securities, □ Utilities, □ Education,
D Retail, □ Government, □ Publishing,
□ Service Company, □ Other.
And check your yearly First-Class Mail
volume: □ Up to 10,000, D 10,001-50,000,
□ 50,001-100,000, □ 100,001-1,000,000,
□ 1,000,000 +
U.S. Postal Service, Regular Mail Services
P.O. Box 2999
Washington, D.C. 20013-2999 7K42
Name
Title
Address_
City
State
_Company_
_ZIP_
YOU FORCED US TO MOVE!
.and We Love You
For It!
Hfe*
WW$@8. MMi(| mtimmJi-
EUROPE
Announcing Logicsott Europe
^. _.,.. «™, order directly th
Our European ^^^^n^^^^f
our Amsterdam Distnbu ion Ce te , sough , atter
latest factory "" a h ' e S° N»* y° u can rece h*
kSSX c^^ y «t r p^c,es. Telex: 10759
L09 ' C NL Cal. 020*3.48.64 or <n.H orders to.
[OG1CSOFT EUROPE BV
A b M 9 S 4 T 6 E ROA M A H L OLLAND
CANADA
CONFUSED
OVER
ACCOUNTING
I
F0 r our OrFBS^^tt&Eg;
local n^ber, 416-283-2K 4.N ow 7 Qf , , ocal ca ll.
FAR EAST AND AUSTRALIA
ment They're exerts on «xport and£_ ^ 28690 5
SaraPfilS ^S?WS to" confirm pncnfl &
policies.
We don't blame you, that's
why we invite you to give us a call.
We've evaluated over 50 of them and just
because you can save a lot of money buying mail
order shouldn't mean you have to sacrifice ser-
vice. ..We want to take the time to assist you
before you buy. We realize that an accounting
system can add up to a sizeable investment and
helping you end up with the right package for
your money is what doing business is all about.
FREE
.Overnight Delivery*
See Our Card for Details •
Because of the tremendous response you've given to our
FREE OVERNIGHT DELIVERY and MO OFF policies, our
growth has been phenominal! Even we did not project how
rapidly we would expand. Quite honestly there were times
when it seemed like the whole country was trying to place an
order at the same time!
We realize that some ot you have had problems getting
through (our phones simply could not handle the volume)
and, yes, some have even gotten their shipments late (our
shipping department has been on a 12 hour schedule).. .to
those of you, WE APOLOGIZE for the inconvenience and
would like to say THANK YOU for your patience.
A one million dollar investment has allowed us to solve
these problems. ..we've just moved into our new World Head-
quarters, beefed up our sales department, added a spanking
new phone system and built a fully automated warehouse.
Oh, sorry, we almost forgot "Harold" (who's extremely
fast, but very sensitive) our new 100 terminal computer
system. He's designed to speed up order processing to get
your shipments out the door. ..fast. Sorry Harold.
BEATING A PRICE BUT WERF
AFRAID TO ASK...
without Really Trying.
us (you know WAtt?
.mg our $10.00 off and FrIp J f haf3s ,hink "
icies were a "gimrnte k » "f f ! em ' 9ht P°'"
pressure you ?nta sfmemn a C ° me<3n " t0
1-800-645-3491 then toll ^° ne , and dia '
you'd like to bea? fpriceK^ 88 agent
rassed; he's nnt\ ♦£- (don * be embar-
the Pubfcafio^nd wh^™ and **» <*
beat. No gimmick nn™ y ° u want us <°
easy. u " nm,CK . no come-on, it's that
ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS
-N
Information
Unlimited
(IUS)
Open
Systems
Great
Plains
Peachtree
Series 8
State of
The Art
Realworid
(MBSI)
BPI
Accounts Payable
•299
'409
•499
'389
•479
•575
•395
Accounts Receivable
•299
•409
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'389
'479
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Fixed Assets
—
•409
'389
General Ledger
■299
'409
•499
'389
'479
•575
•395
Inventory
•299
'409
'499
•389
'479
•575
'539
Job Costing
—
■409
•499
'389
—
•539
Material Management
'409
Order Entry/Processing
'299
'409
'389
•479
•575
—
Payroll
•365
•409
'499
'389
•479
•575
•395
Report Writer
—
'409
Sales Invoicing
'389
•479
—
Purchase Order Entry
—
409
TCS Client Ledger System '1195
JUST A PARTIAL LISTING OF ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS - CALL TODAY!
THE LOGICAL CHOICE
A Member of the Logic Group
110 Bi-County Blvd.. Farmingdale. N.Y. 11735
1-800-645-3491
In New York State. .516 249-8440 • In Canada. .416-283 2354
Customer Service 1-800 431 9037
See following pages for Software, Hardware, Special
Order Dept , Programmers Dept., PC Jr. Corner and our
Computer Forms Division.
INCREDIBLE
NEW SERVICE BREAKTHROUGH
OVERNIGHT
DELIVERY!
VIA...
0k
On Orders Totaling
over $100. . Shipped
UPS FREE il
Under S100
(Within Continental
US.)
Purolator
courier
Q
if
Si
§
Q
III
c
2
i
PLUS.. .IF YOU CAN FIND A LOWER PRICE
lAf^'ll n~^>* — — .a^BBh. THAT'S RIGHT! OUH LOWEST PRICE GUARANTEE IS STILL EFFECTIVE!
UW W ^*^ "^B ■¥ ■ r.ntly advartiaad in any populir computer
nfM BJ Bl fll $io This otter does not apply to items un
Hlf | ^ ^F than Logloolfs. NO DEALER S PLEASE'
WORD PROCESSING
Wordstar 2000
■ H' i ii'.viiHa a
J3E
WORDSTAR 2000 PLUS
Wordstar Pro Pac
Wordstar Pro Plus
WORD PERFECT (New Release,
Microsoft Word
Spellbinder
MULTIMATE
$259
_305
_265
_345
_225
_235
Volkswriter Deluxe
Peachtext 5000 _
Easywriter ll/Speller/Mailer
Edlx & Wordix
Finalword
Samna III
Xy Write II Plus
Think Tank
pis: WRITE.
Wordplus PC with Boss,
Lowfit Price
249
165
199
195
255
225
325
255
125
85
359
DATA BASE MANAGEMENT (com )
d BASE II $369
Clipper (d Base III Compiler) 399
Data Base Manager II (alpha) 175
Infostar plus 159
Friday 169
pts: file & pfs: report 165
REVELATION 745
Powerbase 255
3
FINANCIAL .com i
Financier I
MANAGIN6 YOUR MONEY
Home Accountant Plus _
Howard Tax Preparer
Personal Pearl
Easyfiler
Superfile _
Guru
_229
_235
_159
.1695
INTEGRATED/SPREADSHEETS
LOTUS 1-2-3 (v 2 0) $305
Professional Tax Planner
Fixed Asset System (BEST)
Market Manager Plus (Dow Jones).
Market Analyzer (Dow Jones)
GRAPHICS
CHARTMASTER
Signmaster
BPS Graphics
Fast Graphs
pfs: graph
BRAPHWRITER
115
_$119
99
_195
_319
_439
_179
_269
Enable (New Version) _
Smart Series .
Ability .
DATA BASE MANAGEMENT
KN0WLEDGEMAN
Cornerstone
Tim IV
R:Base4000
R:BASE5000
DB Master
d Base II (New Release)
.Condor III
$259
Loweit Price
189
265
365
475
299
349
FRAMEWORK
Open Access
Electric Desk
SYMPHONY (Limited Quantity).
Supercalc 3
Multiplan
TK! Solver .
pfs: plan_
FINANCIAL
DOLLARS AND SENSE
399
.579
.339
_359
-395
_229
_429
.179
.129
-279
_85
Graphwriter Combo Pak
DIAGRAM MASTER
Microsoft Chart
ENERGRAPHKS
Energraphics with plotter option
PC Draw
Gem Draw (incl. Desk Top)
PROJECT SCHEDULERS
MICROSOFT PROJECT _
SuperProject (IUS)
_$275
_195
_289
_265
85
_319
_485
195
_175
_259
_325
_295
95
HARVARD TOTAL PROJECT MGR.
Project Scheduler (Scitor)
_$115 Project Scheduler 5000 (Scitor)
$165
_245
_265
_245
_279
T|
©eg
'ml
•ml
OO
ml
g3
<52i
zoj
omj
c/>
WORD PROCESSING
FANCY FONT 6159
Wordplus (Oasis) 115
pfs: proof
. M.]^V/.i;l^liJli,JI^CTlH.',l:J.4 _
DATA BASE
Punctuation & Style
Spellix
WordPerfect Sorter
65
_99
59
75
Quickode I
d Graph III
d Util III _
k Graph _
k Paint _
k Text
$159
175
65
_175
85
_109
OATA BASE (com.)
Clout 2 SI 45
119
_45
Extended Report Writer
Sideways
GENERAL
PR0KEY4.0
Norton Utilities (New Release)
SIDEKICK (unprotected)
-S89
_65
_65
GENERAL
CROSSTALK XVI (New Relea&e,S115
Smartcom II 109
Sideways 45
Copy II PC 39
DESK ORGANIZER 65
Prices & polices subject lo change without notice.
* NO SURCHARGE tor VISA or MasterCard * No Sales Tax on Orders Outside NY Stale * Putcrtase Orders
Welcomed from Qualified Institutions NO SURCHARGE 1 (Please call lor price varittcalionl * Please add 2%
ice (int'l orders add I I * Pay
Immediate Replacement on any Effective Product.
3Z£
National Sales f OflfLR AR.^AQ 1
Hot Line I UUW Utw UtJ II the logical choice /
CUStOITter SerViCe 1-800-431 -9037 11 ° Bi County Blvd. Farmingdale. h
New York State.516-249-8440 Canada 416-283-2354 Domestic/International Telex. .286905 Soft UR
THE LOGICAL CHOICE /
A Member of The Logic Group *^^— ^— — -**^
110 Bi-County Blvd.. Farmingdale. NY. 11735
Mil WILL BERT
ftNY PRICE BY
stO
See Other Sid
NEW! Expanded Special Order Dept.
We know there are many products that simply
cannot be found through mail order. We've
solved that problem. ..just ask for our SPECIAL
ORDER department. ..We've got the suppliers
...still at low mail order prices!
far no.-.,. *—
, See Other Si,
* to' Defa,ls
PC JUNIOR CORNER [ I
PROGRAMMER'S DEPT.
SOFTWARE
Lotus 1-2-3 (While they last!)
Wordstar
Electric Desk .
HARDWARE
Captain 128K(Tecmar)
PC Mouse (Mouse Systems)
HARDWARE (Cont.)
_S309 Keytromc 5151 Keyboard _S1 79
_H9 Keytronic 51 49 Num. Keypad 50
189 Jr. 1 28K Booster (Microsoft) _145
Quadram Expansion Chassis 519
339 Quadram Exp. Memory 235
129 QuadmemJr 219
NEW PRODUCTS ADDED DAILY-CALL!
^Concurrent PC DOSiw/winaows) .
Pascal MT + (PC DOS)
PL/1 - (DR)
Display Manager (DR)
Access Manager (DR)
LATTICE C COMPILER
C Food Smorgasbord _
S99
349
489
359
269
305
_119
Pascal Compiler (MS)
C Compiler (MS)
Microsoft Sort
Cobol Compiler(MS)
Business Basic (MS)
FORTRAN COMPILER (MS)
C86 C Compiler
(Computer Innovations) .
S245>
_305
_159
479
299
229
^345/
PRINTERS*
DIABLO
36**
D25**
630-ECS**
EPSON
L01500 _
Parallel Interface
JX-80
LX-80**
IX 80 Tractor/Feeder.
RX100
FX 80 Plus"*
FX-185(New)**
JUKI
6100
6300
MANNESMANN TALLY
Spirit 80
160
180
NEC
2030*"
2050"*
3530
3550
8850**
PmwnterP2**_
PinwnterP3**_
OKIDATA
182P
84 IBM
192 IBM
193P
2410P
OUME
CITIZEN
MSP10.
MSP15
MSP20
MSP25
_S1229
619
^1799
$1199
79
599
265
30
399
379
569
_$439
_799
_S279
_579
_849
_$719
_695
1329
_1395
_1949
_675
_895
_$239
_799
_409
_559
2295
Sprint 11/40**
Sprint 11/55**
Sprint 11/90**
SILVER REED
400
$1299
1595
2199
$279
770
795
TOSHIBA
P351 Tractor
P351
$165
1375
1340
539
.$315
_455
_455
„595
I'HJHiHqs^ii-'i'.yvi-
MONITORS*
AMDEK
Color 300
Color 500
Color 600
Color 710
1 2" Green 300G
12" Amber 300A
12" Amber 31 0A
PRINCETON GRAPHICS
RGBHX-12
RGBSR-12
$255
_389
_479
_579
_135
_145
_169
COMMUNICATIONS BOARDS (com
AST-3780 749
DCA
IRMA Board.
QUADRAM
Quadlink
_$949
_$449
.$489
_599
GRAPHICS BOAROS
AST
Monograph plus $425
Preview 279
EVEREX
MODEMS (cont.)
QUADRAM
Asher $395
Quadmodem 2000 315
499
375
565
Scan Doubler Board (for sr 1 2) 185
Amber Max-12E 185
QUADRAM
Quadchrome 1 2" $465
Quadscreen 1 7" 1595
Quadchrome I1 1 4" 465
Amberchrome 12" 165
TAXAN
100G $125
105A 135
121 149
149
Graphics Edge.
The Edge
HERCULES
Graphics Card _
Color Card
$309
_299
.$299
_169
Quadmodem 2024
Quadmodem 21 00
Quadmodem 2124
RACALVADIC
Maxwell 1200 PC (*/sw) $239
Maxwell 1 200 V (wsw) 239
2400 V 435
VENTEL
PC Modem Half Card $379
PC Modem 1200 399
1 200 Plus 399
MA SYSTEMS
Peacock Color Board
PARADISE SYSTEMS
Multi-Display Card
259
409
699
122.
210.
420.
440.
MULTI-FUNCTION BOARDS
AST RESEARCH
Six Pak Plus (64k) $249
Mega Plus II (64k) 275
Mega Pak (256k) 369
Advantage (1 28k) 429
I/O Plusll 135
ORCHID
Blossom (0 k) $235
QUADRAM
Quadboard(64k).
STB
Super Rio (64k) .
Rio Plus II (64k)_
Rio Grande
Grande Byte
Chauffeur
TECMAR
Captain
_$245
_$215
Modular Graphics Card 289
Options A & B Lowest Price
QUADRAM
Quadcolorl $195
Quadcolorll 465
SIGMA
Color 400 $549
STB
Graphics Plus II
TECMAR
Graphics Master
TSENG LABORATORIES
Ultra Pak
.$315
.$459
.$545
BACK-UP DEVICES
ALLOY
PC Quick Tape (60Mb) $1719
SYSGEN
Image (1 0Mb) $835
MOUSE INPUT DEVICES
MOUSE SYSTEMS
PC Mouse w/paintbrush $139
MICROSOFT
Microsoft Mouse (Serial) $149
Microsoft Mouse (Buss) 139
SURGE PROTECTORS
KENSINGTON MICR0WARE
MasterPiece $115
CURTIS
Diamond $39
Emerald 49
Sapphire 59
Ruby 69
.$245
.$329
_259
_375
_275
.Lowest Price
.$199
COMMUNICATIONS BOARDS
AST
AST 5251-11 $699
AST- SNA 699
ASTBSC 699
MODEMS
HAYES
Smartmodem 300 $205
Smartmodem 1 200 445
Smartmodem 1200Bw/smartcom ii 349
Smartmodem 2400 719
NOVATION
Access 1 -2-3 $475
Smart Cat Plus (Int.) 355
Professional 2400 689
PRENTICE
Popcorn X100 $379
Popcorn C1 00 355
PROMETHEUS
KEYBOARDS
KEYTRONIC
5150
5151 (Deluxe)
5152B
.$159
_175
645
MEMORY CHIPS
64k (200ns) $35
256k (1 50ns) 69
Pro-modem 1200
Pro Modem 1200B
$375
_319
DISKETTES
LOGICTRAK 5 V ioo% guarantho
DouMt iKlt. douM dtnjity, 10 par Doi
20 + boxes per disk $2.35
10 19 boxes per disk $2.50
2 9 boxes per disk $2.99
1 box per disk $3.99
'Due to we
light restrictions, Printers and Monitors are shipped UPS. ..FREE
"Parallel interface req...Ask sales agent
* NO SURCHARGE lor VISA or MasterCard * No Sales Tai on Orders Outside N Y Stale * Purcnase Orders
Welcomed from Qualified Inslitutions NO SURCHARGE' (Please call for price verification! * Please add 2%
tor handling and insurance (Int'l orders add I I * Payment MasterCard. VISA American Eip . C O D Money Order
-7*7
National Sales 1 .Qnfl.CAK.Q/lQI -
Hot Line I UUU Uiv W^tiJ I the logical choice /
CllStOmer SerViCe 1-800-431-9037 11 ° Bi County Blvd.. Farmingdale.
New York State..516-249-8440 Canada_...416-283-2354 Domestic/International Telex.286905 Soft UR
THE LOGICAL CHOICE /
A Member ot The Logic Group *^^^™ rt
110 Bi-County Blvd., Farmingdale. NY. 11735
ACCORDING TO WEBSTER
removes much of the burden from the 68000 processor.
This includes the Blitter (bit-mapped block-transfer device)
and hardware support for sprites and other animation ef-
fects. The Amiga also offers a variety of video output
signals: NTSC (National Television System Committee) for
RF (radio frequency) modulators, composite, and RGB (red-
green-blue), both analog and digital. The software for
graphics is not as extensive nor as well done as that on
the Mac. From what I can tell by the manuals, however,
it isn't as restrictive, either. And the memory map is
marvelous; the Amiga allows an additional 8 megabytes
of RAM to be added via the expansion bus, offering a
solution for memory-intensive processes.
A Paradox
Amazing graphics do not a successful computer make, at
least not necessarily. The Atari 520ST and the Amiga are
both perceived as being glorified game machines because
of their powerful color graphics; the comment often heard
is, "Who wants business software that runs in color?" Yet
color graphics have been pushed for the Mac as a way
of penetrating further into the business market. These no-
tions are contradictory but represent the problems that
both types of systems face in being accepted outside of
the home.
So, back to the original issue; Should Apple come out
with a color Mac? I don't think so, since it raises more
problems than it solves. Existing software won't be able
to take advantage of it; the "color routines" in QuickDraw
are very simple and aren't worth a whole lot; it would in-
troduce a whole set of software/hardware-compatibility
problems (which Apple will probably have enough of, any-
way); without special hardware support, it will just lead
to further degradation of performance (though that may
be part of the reason for the dual 68000 processors sup-
posedly used in Carla); all the current machines will be
left out of the upgrade; and it will make the system more
expensive. In short, Apple has a lot to lose and not that
much to gain.
New Products
A completely unexpected product— SideKick for the Mac-
intosh—showed up in the mail from Borland International
yesterday. It has a wide list of features, like a calendar,
notepad, business calculator, simple telecom program, ap-
pointment/alarm list, auto-dialer, and so on. Many of these
are installed as desk accessories, which is how you ac-
cess them from within your application. I've run into a few
problems (such as the Install program not "seeing" any
of the accessories to be installed), and I can't really recom-
mend it until I've had a chance to check it out some more.
Look for a follow-up here next month.
Most books about the Macintosh have been useless fluff,
at least as far as serious programming goes. The only ex-
ception has been the infamous, expensive, and obscure
Inside Macintosh from Apple. Kathe Spracklen, coauthor of
(continued)
NEW
"EAST COAST"
OFFICE
When we opened our second location in Nevada
last year we were swamped with calls from our
east coast customers asking for a closer location.
The word was; "We need faster delivery, too." Well,
now it's there. Located as close as possible to all .
Delaware 1-800-451-1849
P.O.Box 10247 Wilmington, DE. 19850
We would like to thank each of you sincerely for
your patronage. We appreciate your Business
the ^-v
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'Delaware 1 800 451 1849
PO Bo« 10247 Wilminelon. OE 19850
'Oklahoma 1 800 654 4058
RO. Box 1674 Belhany, OK 73008
* Nevada 1 800 621 6221
PO Box 1213 Boul'
TERMS 1 Minimum 20 disks or *35°-° VISA or MasterCard accepted
COD. orders add 2<* tor special handling. SHIPPING 1 3 1 4« 5^ Diskettes;
Add 3™ for every 100 Diskettes or any fraction thereof. 8'Diskettes; Add
4^ for every 100 Diskettes or any fraction thereof. We ship UPS; orders
requiring other delivery methods add shipping, plus 2% of total order.
Inquiry 1 1 5
DECEMBER
iYTE 417
Inquiry 231
New OEM SBC
Base model
Only$
250.
5" x 11"
OEM Discounts Available
Includes:
ill • 6 MHz Z80® Processor
S :'!.' »64KDRAM
• Provision for 128K of EPROM
or E 2 PROM
• 3 Parallel Ports
• Boot PROM to boot oft EPROM,
floppy disk or hard disk
• Full Z80 Interrupt Support
Optional features to choose from:
• Floppy Disk Controller 8 ", 5.25" and 3.5" • ST-506
Winchester Hard Disk Controller • 128K or 256K DRAM
• Monochrome or Color CRT Video Controller (Alpha-
numerics and Graphics) • Up to 4 additional Serial Ports
• Up to 2 additional parallel ports with counter-timers
• Buffered Peripheral Expansion Interface • 50 or 60 Hz
operation • Time-of Day Clock with Battery Back-up
The Megatel Quark®/400 is a single board computer which allows
OEM designers the flexibility of choosing only the features required.
Development and system software include fully configured CPM® 2.2
operating systems — BASIC and C All Megatel software
includes utilities, drivers and source code To order or enquire, call us
today. Megatel Computer Technologies 150 Turbine Drive, Weston,
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NY 14206
megatel
IBM PC AT performance!
PCjr price!
• AMPRO Little Board 186 $419
•8 Mhz 16 Bit 80186 CPU
• 128 512K RAM; 1 MB
w add-on board
• 128K EPROM -2 Byte
Wide sockets
• 4 Drive floppy disk controller
SCSI (SASI) hard disk interface
• IBM compatible ROM-BIOS
• Boots PC DOS 2 x. 3.x
• Two RS232 C serial ports
• Parallel printer port
• Expansion board w 51 2K RAM. 8087-2. Clock. 2 serial ports,
RS422 port
• AMPRO Little Board Plus $289
• Same as Little Board 186 except 4 Mhz Z80A (8 Bit) CPU
64K RAM. 4 - 16K EPROM; w CP M 2.2. ZCPR3
• AMPRO Little Board (the original) $239
• Same as Little Board Plus except no SCSI. 4K EPROM.
w CP M 2.2, ZCPR3
vv 25 different enclosures w power supplies, cables, etc. from S99
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ACCORDING TO WEBSTER
Macintosh Revealed is more
than 500 pages long, well
illustrated, and well laid-out, but
it just doesn't cover
everything I want it to.
Sargon II, once said that the book "consists of 25 chapters,
each one of which requires that you understand the other
24 before reading it," which should give you some idea
of what a pain it is to use. But for anyone wanting to do
much with the Mac, it was the only real source of infor-
mation (other than INFO-MAC, MacTutor, and your local
Mac users group).
However, some decent books are finally coming out.
Most notable is Macintosh Revealed by Stephen Chernicoff
(Hayden Book Company). Volume l (Unlocking the Toolbox)
has been out for some time. Volume 2 (Programming with
the Toolbox) has just come out. Each volume costs $24.95.
Chernicoff appears to know what he's talking about, and
he does a good job of bringing a newcomer (albeit a
dedicated one) up to speed on the Mac.
My two complaints about the book are that it is too short
and it costs too much. But that is neither Chernicoff's nor,
I think, Hayden's fault: the book is more than 500 pages
long, well illustrated, and well laid-out, but it just doesn't
cover everything l wouM like it to. Nor could it possibly.
Considering how enormous Inside Macintosh is, and yet how
tersely it deals with all the aspects of the Mac, I would
imagine that a complete treatment of the Macintosh would
run a few thousand pages in four volumes. My only real
complaint is that Macintosh Revealed was not around a year
ago.
In the Queue
As I said at the start, I have piles of untested (and un-
opened) software that I need to get to. With luck, I can
get settled quickly and get down to some serious work.
I'm still coming up to speed on C and have many different
C compilers to look at (including Microsoft's new C com-
piler and a few of the cheap C implementations for MS-
DOS). Two new programming languages for the Apple II
have shown up: Kyan Pascal and PROMAL. I want to give
the ITC Modula-2 Software Development System a real
workout, also.
In the meantime, take care, and I'll see you on the bit
stream. ■
Yd like to acknowledge the help of Ryan Gale of Monitor Yabs and Andy
\aros and Doug Bell of Oasis Systems in gleaning some of the graphics infor-
mation about the IBM PC and the Atari 520ST. Thanks, guys.
l YT E • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 1 16
IBMXT
Super XT
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$ 1195
System Configuration
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• DOS
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Above System With 20MB Hard Disk $1,895.00
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AT Style for XT $1 35
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All merchandise new
We accept MC. Visa, and Choice (add 3%
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PRINTERS
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COMPUTERS & ELECTRONICS
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inquiry I 70
DECEMBER 1985 • BY
CIRCUIT CELLAR FEEDBACK
Conducted by Steve Garcia
Terminal-Management
Processor
Dear Steve,
In your January 1984 Circuit Cellar, you
explored the NS4 55A terminal-manage-
ment processor. 1 am constructing an
NS455A-based school project. Where can
I get an NS455A assembler?
Also, could you suggest a design for a
single-step switch that would allow me to
execute one instruction at a time?
Ron Scott
Atlanta, GA
Ion Elson has written an assembler for
the NS455A in Turbo Pascal that should
work on any Pascal system. He can be
contacted at 819 Marshall Ave.. Webster
Groves. MO 63119, (314) 962-6103.
If National Semiconductor's documen-
tation is correct, there is no way to use
a single-step switch on the NS455A. The
documentation indicates that the clock
must not go below 3 MHz. The correct
way to do debugging is to write a debug-
ger/monitor program. You can get con-
trol back from a breakpoint with either
a hardware interrupt or by placing an
M0VP3 instruction over the breakpoint.
Unfortunately, I know of no easy way to
debug programs on the 8048 class of
computers without extensive hardware
support or a development system. The
only alternative is trial and error, com-
bined with careful bench-checking of
your code. You should also look at the
May 2. 1985. issue of EDN for an article
on an 8048-family emulator that you can
build. IThe NS455A is a derivative of the
8048. and this circuit might be adapted
for the NS455A.)— Steve
Speech Synthesis
Dear Steve,
Concerning your article in lune 1983.
"Use ADPCM for Highly Intelligible
Speech Synthesis." I have built the speech-
synthesis circuit, and it is operating well
with my computer. My hobby is amateur
radio, and I am able to use speech syn-
thesis for a radio transceiver with pre-
recorded bulletins and news.
Can you help me locate the design of
a 64K-byte DRAM system to connect to
the Oki speech-synthesis circuit? The
memory should provide about 1 5 seconds
of recorded speech.
John P. Szykoluk
Ste. Anne. Manitoba. Canada
There are many applications for speech
synthesis, and your application is an in-
teresting use of the ADPCM chips.
DRAM chips are a good choice for ap-
plications where density and power are
a concern. One of the disadvantages of
using these chips is that they must be
refreshed, which necessitates extra cir-
cuitry In your search for a memory sys-
tem that connects directly to the Oki
speech-synthesis circuit, you will prob-
ably find that building such a unit is not
extremely difficult. In essence, a small
computer system is necessary to control
the memory.
In order to access the memory chips,
you need to provide an address where
the data will be written to and read from.
Also, there must be logic that senses
when there is data to be transferred. All
this must be accomplished with some
sort of sequential logic. In the article, the
speech-synthesis circuit was interfaced to
a Z80 microprocessor. Many CMOS
microcontrollers are available that con-
tain many useful functions. If you don't
need all the bells and whistles of these
microcontroller chips, you could use a
CMOS microprocessor like National
Semiconductors NSC800. This uses the
same instruction set as the Z80 and is
useful in low-power situations.
To achieve 15 seconds of speech, you
will need 60K bytes of data memory. This
leaves about 4K bytes of directly ad-
dressable memory space for your use.
That should be plenty of speech mem-
ory for this application.
The following books may be helpful in
designing a microprocessor system: The
Z-80 Microcomputer Handbook by
William Barden lr. (Howard W. Sams,
19781 and Build Your Own Z-80 Com-
puter by me (BYTE Books. 1980).— Steve
Speech-Assisted Workstation
Dear Steve.
I am interested in developing a speech-
assisted workstation for the blind. Your ar-
ticle describing the SSI263 integrated cir-
cuit looks very useful ("Build a Third-
Generation Phonetic Speech Synthesizer."
March 1984). The rule-based software
allows a level of personality to be in-
tegrated into the package (such as pro-
nouncing the user's name correctly).
1 would be implementing the system on
an MS-DOS machine, the Tandy 1200. 1
am quite new at microcomputers, and I
would appreciate your assistance in run-
ning the system in a non-Apple environ-
ment. Since Apple and Tandy use dif-
ferent machine languages, a list of the
phoneme rules might be sufficient for soft-
ware conversion. Any ideas on how the
board fits into the actual slot would be
helpful.
Michael Salsburc
West Chester. PA
There are many useful applications for
the SSI263 speech synthesizer. Your ap-
plication is another example of its use-
fulness to help disabled individuals.
While the Sweet Talker II was designed
for the Apple II. the same principles are
applicable to any computer. As men-
tioned in the article, the Apple's address-
decoding capability simplifies the task of
selecting the board. However, this does
not present a major problem for other
computers. It simply means that another
method of address decoding must be
supplied on the actual printed-circuit
board.
As far as the software is concerned, the
same basic commands outlined in the ar-
ticle can be used. While the machine lan-
guage for your computer is different than
that for the Apple II, you should be able
to adopt the same ideas. Good luck.
—Steve ■
Over the years I have presented many dif-
ferent projects in BYTE. 1 know many of you
have built them and are making use of them
in many ways
1 am interested in hearing from any of you
telling me what you've done with these projects
or how you may have been influenced by the
basic ideas. Write me at Circuit Cellar Feed-
back. POB 582. Glastonbury. CT 06033,
and fill me in on your applications. All letters
and photographs become the property of Steve
Garcia and cannot be returned.
420 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
COPYRIGHT © 1985 STEVEN A. GARCIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Rome, Italy.
Rome, New York,
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Nobody delivers the whole wide world like DHL.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 421
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LETTERS
[continued from page 32)
Homebrew CPU
EGO: A Homebuilt CPU. Part l: The Soft-
ware" by Clifford Kelley (September, page
229) was as untimely as all get-out and I
loved it!
While attending Hope College as an
undergrad. I had the opportunity to con-
struct a 4-bit CPU designed by Dr. Jim Van-
Putten as a teaching tool for an electronics
course. It sprawled across at least eight
breadboards (the ones with all the little
holes) and took forever to build, but it was
invaluable for learning. The innards of the
processor, such as a clear distinction of
instruction cycles or what it means to
"decode an instruction," were indelibly in-
scribed in my memory. I still have the
hand-drawn construction and operation
instruction in my desk drawer.
Over the years, it seems BYTE has
leaned away from homebrew-type articles.
Thank you for making Homebrewing the
September theme. For me, the "derived
education" Mr. Kelley speaks of has been
a continued source of fascination of how
simple even the complicated can become.
Brian |. Mork
Savoy. IL
Agricultural Programs
Sought
I am in the process of compiling public-
domain, farm-business-related programs
written in BASIC for increasing the produc-
tivity of farm-business operation. These
programs will be helpful to farmers, uni-
versities, and agricultural agents.
In this connection, I would like to re-
quest the assistance of readers who might
be able to share with me their programs
or public-domain programs they have
used to realize this valuable project.
Proper credit and acknowledgment will be
extended to the author and a final com-
plimentary copy of the compilation will be
given to those who have shared and
donated their work. Write to me at the
University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez
Department of Agricultural Engineering,
POB 5114. College Station. Mayaguez. PR
00709.
E. ). Ravalo
Mayaguez. PR
Structuring BASIC
Although Arthur Huston presented some
useful ideas on the use of BASIC in his ar-
ticle "Structuring BASIC" (|une, page 243).
there is. I think, a better way to accomplish
the same goals. This is through the use of
a preprocessor to provide structured con-
structs. For instance, in Dr. Dobb's journal
#88. N. C Shammas describes NBASIC. a
powerful preprocessor for Microsoft
BASIC The enhancements include named
subroutines with parameter passing.
CASE statements, REPEAT. .. UNTIL
statements, and alphanumeric labels.
The use of the intrinsic WHILE...
WEND as well as CASE and REPEAT
allows completely structured programming.
You need never use GOTO: if you do. how-
ever, you can now identify the destination
by a label rather than a line number.
Beyond providing the tools for good
structured programming, NBASIC makes
subroutine libraries a snap to implement.
This is so because the subroutines can be
named: one need never be concerned
with line numbers. Your subroutine library
should be created with an ordinary text
editor and lines left unnumbered. Your ap-
plication program should be created
similarly: within it you can simply CALL
the subroutines by name. Then all you
need do is join the two text files, number
the lines, and submit them to the prepro-
cessor. These operations are easily done
by way of a command-file processor (SUB-
MIT or EX in CP/M. SUB or ZEX in ZCPR3.
or BATCH in MS-DOS). (Since it is not
possible to pass command-line argu-
ments, such as a filename, to BASIC pro-
grams, for easy command-file execution
it is useful to modify NBASIC to read the
name of its input file from another file. A
short program can then be written in as-
sembly language, Pascal, or C to read the
command line and store its argument in
this file and then exit or chain to the pre-
processor.)
Although the linking, numbering, and
preprocessing of a program slows down
the development cycle somewhat, the
time will be more than made up when it
is necessary to modify the program a
month or a year later.
On the whole, however, anyone desiring
a structured, interpretive language that en-
courages the construction of reusable
code really ought to be using FORTH.
Dreas Nielsen
Corvallis. OR
Arthur Huston replies:
NBASIC certainly sounds like one of the
more powerful BASIC preprocessors on
the market, and it would no doubt be an
effective tool in writing structured pro-
grams. My article, however, was aimed at
the legions of programmers who learned
Microsoft BASIC when they first bought
{continued)
424 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
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'6MHZ 80286 CPU
•512K
'ONE, 1.2 MB FLOPPY DRIVE
'8 EXPANSION SLOTS
■ 195 WATT POWER SUPPLY
'COMPLETE MS DOS^ PC DOS.
XENIX COMPATIBILITY
•RUNS LOTUS 123, DBASE III
FRAMEWORK AND ALL OTHER
POPULAR AT SOFTWARE.
'ONE YEAR WARRANTY!!
OPTIONS:
TECH PC/AT WITH A _ . _ _,
20MB HARD DISK $2499
TECH PC/AT WITH 20MB HARD DISK.
MONOCHROME MONITOR^
HERCULES® COMPATIBLE -»-,»_-
MONO/GRAPHICS CARD $2699
ALSO AVAILABLE WITH 6-8 MHZ
SWITCHABLE CPU TAPE BACKUPS.
MODEMS. LARGER HARD DISKS,
AND NETWORKING SYSTEMS.
TECH TURBO PC/XT
S1099
PRICE INCLUDES:
'4 TO 7 MHZ SOFTWARE
SWITCHABLE CPU
'640K
' TWO, 360K DS/DD FLOPPY DISK DRIVES
'8 EXPANSION SLOTS
' 135 WATT POWER SUPPLY
'ONE YEAR WARRANTY!!
OPTIONS:
TECH TURBO PC/XT WITH -..._.«,»
20MB HARD DISK $1699
TECH TURBO PC/XT WITH 20MB HARD
DISK, MONOCHROME MONITOR AND
HERCULES COMPATIBLE A -*»^*»
MONO/GRAPHICS CARD $1950
TECH PC/XT $799
PRICE INCLUES:
'4.77 MHZ CPU
'256K
' TWO, 360K DS/DD FLOPPY DRIVES
'8 EXPANSION SLOTS
' 135 WATT POWER SUPPLY
'ONE YEAR WARRANTY!!
OPTIONS:
TECH PC/XT WITH *.*mm~.
20MB HARD DISK $1449
TECH PC/XT WITH 20MB HARD DISK.
MONOCHROME MONITOR,
HERCULES COMPATIBLE „>. _. . _
MONO/GRAPHICS CARD $1649
TELEX: 272006
Answer Back TECH
FAX: 714/556 8325
VISA, MASTERCHARGE,
CHECK ACCEPTED
1 ^!*^S~* W~*^ COMPUTERS
714/754-1170
2131 S. HATHAWAY, SANTA ANA, CA
©1985 TECH PC 92705
'Hercules is a registered trademark of Hercules Computer
Technology
'IBM. IBM PC, XT. and AT are registered trademarks of International
Business Machines Corp
426 BYTE • DECEMBER 1 98 5
LETTERS
Listing 3: A subprogram for random-numbei
generation.
;Returns a new ISEED and the
FILD
DWORD PTR
normalized RAND;
MODULO
.8087
FILD
DWORD PTR
DSEG SEGMENT PARA
FACTOR
PUBLIC 'DATA'
;pointer for ISEED
; Required info for trancing back to
LDS
SI,ES:[BX]
FORTRAN
FILD
DWORD PTR
[SI]
DB 'RANDOM 1
FMUL
SP_SAVE DW
FPREM
DD RANDOM
;return the new ISEED
FACTOR DD 69069D
FIST
DWORD PTR
[SI]
MODULO DD 7FFFFFFFH
FDIVB
ST,ST(1)
DSEG ENDS
LDS
SI,ES:[BX] + 4
;return the normalized RAND
CSEG SEGMENT PARA
FST
DWORD PTR
[SI]
PUBLIC 'CODE'
Tor addressibility of DATA seg
ASSUME CS:CSEG,SS:SSEG
MOV
AX, DSEG
; required by callin prog
MOV
DS.AX
DW DSEG
FWAIT
RANDOM PROC FAR
RET
PUBLIC RANDOM
RANDOM ENDP
Tor addressability of DATA seg
CSEG ENDS
MOV AX, DSEG
SSEG SEGMENT PARA STACK
MOV DS.AX
'STACK
ASSUME DS:DSEG
DB
64 DUP(?)
MOV SP_SAVE,SP
SSEG ENDS
;computation starts here with 8087
END
their machine and now write useful pro-
grams for themselves, their businesses,
or their friends. Bringing structure to
their programs through techniques rather
than expensive add-on products seems
a logical next step.
I also never meant that these tech-
niques made BASIC "better" than
FORTH or, for that matter, any language.
There are thousands of people who pro-
gram in BASIC because it is free, relative-
ly simple, and accesses all the bells and
whistles in their machine (graphics, sound
port, etc.). Another alternative would be
to buy one of the new versions of BASIC
such as True BASIC or Better BASIC.
Random-Number
Generation
The excellent article by Charles A. Whitney
("Generating and Testing Pseudorandom
Numbers," October 1984, page 128) is
most useful and timely for those who are
serious about Monte Carlo programs
using small computers. Most software
houses supply simple random-number
generators for BASIC, but they refuse to
include the random-number generators in
more advanced languages in order to
avoid precisely those pitfalls mentioned
in Whitney's article. Microsoft FORTRAN
and IBM Professional FORTRAN are no
exceptions. However, if you use the reg-
isters with 64 bits or more in a co-
processor such as an 8087, a very simple
yet proven random-number generator is
possible. One has to use assembly lan-
guage in order to stay within the 8087 co-
processor until the desired random
number is computed.
Listing 3 shows my version of a random-
number generator that is a transplantation
of RN32 from the venerable CERN Pro-
gram Library (CERN Division DD. 1211
Geneva 2 3, Switzerland), which was
originally written for 32-bit machines of
CDC and IBM mainframes. It employs the
linear congruential generator discussed in
Whitney's article, with the multiplicative
factor of 69069 and initial seed of 65539,
and the product is taken modulo (2 to the
31st power). Notice that these selections
conform with the rules of thumb in
Whitney's article. The current version sup-
plied is in a format to be linked with
modules written in IBM Professional FOR-
TRAN and to be invoked by CALL RAN-
DOM(ISEED.RAND).
Yung Keun Lee
Baltimore, MD ■
Hayes™ compatible modems — Incompatible price
-It's!
Lt's hard to be humble when IBM™
compatibility, excellent performance, and very low cost are among
your products' hallmarks.
Sunnyvale Communications Company introduces the new 1200LC
Modem, a true high performance-low cost complete modem unit.
Whether you decide on our popular 1200TPC internal card design
or its new standalone version you won't be disappointed.
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At this price you wouldn't expect 1200/300 bps operation,
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we give you more! Coupled with our two year modem warranty is a
30 day money-back guarantee. Sound better all the time?
Place your order toll-free today, or write to us for more
information.
NAME
ADDRESS
DAY PHONE
□ CHECK ENCLOSED
D VISA/ACCT. NO.
□ MASTERCARD/ACCT. NO.
□ 1200LC Modem
□ 1200 TPC Modem Card
SIGNATURE
California residents add sales tax. All orders add $4
per modem for shipping and handling. Additional freight
charges will be added for Canadian and international
orders. No C.O.D.s or purchase orders accepted.
Allow four weeks for delivery.
Sunnyvale
Communications
Company
P.O. Box356S-Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3565
408/752-5095
800/
835-9009 in Ca.
TOLL FREE ORDER LINES
558-5741 outside Ca
Hayes is a trademark of Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. • IBM is a trademark of International Business Machines Corp.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 427
I
;: .-..-■ :
cuter:
utmtr:
..«,.. 28.. .39.. .41.. .St..
I
mm
The new ITT XTRA™XP
is definitely out to break
some speed limits and
sound barriers.
Thanks, in part, to the
added muscle of an Intel
80286 chip buried deep
inside, the ITT XTRAXP
runs circles around the
competition.
It is, in fact, over three
and a half times faster
than the IBM XT.
And twenty-five percent
faster than the AT on a
Lotus recomputation.
And as if speed alone
weren't enough, the new
ill
XP actually speaks. And
listens.
Using our optional Voice
Communications Module,
you can duplicate key-
strokes with just your voice.
Leaving your hands free
to go about their business.
You'll also find an
extremely economical
3270 emulation option.
And our optional Inte-
grated Graphics Adapter
that displays virtually any
program on the market —
color or monochrome —
on one monitor.
All backed by a world-
wide communications
company dedicated to
tota l office communication
ITT listens, too.
Call us at (800) 321-7661,
or in California, (800)
368-7300.
Call today Time is
definitely money
And time is somethin
the XP can save you a
lot of.
ITT
PERSONAL COMPUTERS
© 1986. ITT Systems, Inc.
IBM XT and AT are registered trademarks ol International Business Machines. Intel 80286 is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
428 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 402 for End-Users. Inquiry 403 for DEALERS ONLY.
WHAT'S NEW
SYSTEMS
Apple-compatible
Ace 2000 Series
The Ace 2000 series, like
previous Franklin offer-
ings, is compatible with the
Apple II computer family.
Franklin claims the 2000 can
run 95 percent of the Apple
II software.
The Ace 2000 has 128K
bytes of memory and a
detached keyboard with
numeric keypad and user-
definable function keys. The
computer also has a parallel
printer port, 80-column
display capability, and a
game port with both 9- and
16-pin connectors. The 2000
uses the GTE 65SC02 micro-
processor, which allows it to
generate the double-high-
resolution modes of the
Apple He and lie.
The Ace 2000 is available
in three versions: the 2200,
with two disk drives and a
list price of $999; the 2100,
with one drive, for $849;
and the 2000, with no
drives, for $699. An optional
high-resolution monochrome
monitor (22-MHz bandwidth)
is available for $139. Contact
Franklin Computer Corp.,
Route 73/Haddonfield Rd.,
Pennsauken, NJ 08110, (609)
488-0666.
Inquiry 611.
SBC88 Development
and Control System
The SBC88 from Vesta
Technology is a single-
board computer based on
the 8088 microprocessor. It
comes with either two 2K by
8-bit RAM chips or one 8K
by 8-bit RAM chip. The 2K
version can be expanded to
8K of memory and has an
EPROM programmer to burn
2716 EPROMs. The 8K ver-
sion can be expanded to
32K of memory and has an
EPROM programmer to burn
2764 EPROMs.
The -Franklin Ace 2200.
Both boards have an
RS-232C port and 23 I/O
ports, including two 8-bit
output ports, two 8-bit input
ports, seven individually ad-
dressable input ports, and
seven high-current output
ports. An 8-bit A/D con-
verter provides eight chan-
nels for analog input; soft-
ware routines allow analog
output.
Programs for the SBC88
can be written in BASIC or
FORTH, downloaded from
any terminal via the
RS-232C port, and copied
from RAM to EPROM using
the PROGRAM command.
Once this is done the pro-
gram will execute whenever
the system is turned on. The
2K board costs $279 and
the 8K board costs $319, in-
cluding choice of language/
operating system. Contact
Vesta Technology Inc., Suite
101, 7100 West 44th Ave..
Wheatridge, CO 80033,
(303) 422-
Inquiry 612.
Epson's Equity I
Epson's Equity I is an
IBM PC-compatible desk-
top computer with a key-
board like the PC AT's. Stan-
dard features include serial
and parallel ports, three ex-
pansion slots. 8088 pro-
cessor. 2 56K bytes of RAM
expandable to 640K, a front-
panel power switch, MS-DOS
2.11, and GW-BASIC. It has a
socket for an optional 8087
coprocessor.
The Equity I comes in
three configurations. With
one 360K 5!4-inch floppy-
disk drive, it's priced at
$995. With a second disk
drive, it costs $1295. A ver-
sion with one floppy-disk
drive and a 20-megabyte
hard disk is $2195.
Epson offers as options a
12-inch monochrome moni-
tor ($149), a 13-inch color
monitor ($549), a mono-
chrome video adapter card
($129), and a color-graphics
adapter card ($149). The
Equity I is designed to use
all standard IBM PC expan-
sion hardware and software.
Contact Epson America
Inc.. 2780 Lomita Blvd., Tor-
rance, CA 90505, (800)
421-5426; in California, (213)
539-9140.
Inquiry 613.
68010 UNIX System
The microFORCE-1 is a
two-user VMEbus sys-
tem with a five-slot back-
plane. Four slots are filled
with a memory-management
board, a memory card, a
serial I/O card, and a Win-
chester/floppy-disk controller,
leaving one expansion slot.
The memory-management
board, Force's CPU-3VA, has
a 68010 microprocessor run-
ning UNIX System V 1.0,
32K bytes of static RAM,
and a serial port. The sys-
tem has an MMU bypass
option to decrease the ex-
ecution time of UNIX system
calls whenever possible. The
DRAM 2.2 memory card
comes with 1 megabyte of
RAM. Its I/O card has three
RS-232C ports, including a
printer port and a port for
synchronous or asyn-
chronous communication.
The microFORCE-1 comes
with one 5!4-inch floppy-disk
drive and a 2 5-megabyte un-
formatted hard-disk drive. It
costs $5995. Contact Force
Computers Inc., 727 Univer-
sity Ave., Los Gatos, CA
95030, (408) 354-3410.
Inquiry 614.
(continued)
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 429
WHAT'S NEW
P E R I P H E
HabaDisk for Atari ST
Haba Systems HabaDisk
is a 10-megabyte hard-
disk expansion for Atari's ST
computer, storing as much
information as 12 double-
sided disks. The HadaDisk
includes its own power
supply and an interface
cable that attaches to the
ST's hard-disk port. Haba
says the drive is fully com-
patible with existing Atari ST
hardware and software.
The HabaDisk is priced at
$699.95. For more informa-
tion, contact Haba Systems,
6711 Valjean Ave., Van Nuys,
CA 91406. (818) 901-8828.
Inquiry 615.
9-track Tape Drive
for IBM PC
The AN-9800-PC from
Acknowledge is a 9-
track tape subsystem for the
IBM PC and Wang Profes-
sional computers. The tape
drive allows data to be writ-
ten to and read from the
standard kS-inch tape on
7-inch reels used by many
mainframe and minicom-
puter makers, permitting
data transfer between micro-
computers and mainframes.
Included with the self-
loading, self-threading
AN-9800-PC is a controller
card that occupies a single
expansion slot in the IBM
PC or Wang PC. The
30-pound drive has a foot-
print of 9 by 14 inches. The
IBM PC-compatible tape-
drive system is priced at
$4995. while the Wang PC
version is $5995. An op-
tional carrying case for the
tape drive is $145. Contact
Acknowledge Inc.. 100 Penn-
sylvania Ave.. Framingham.
MA 01701. (617) 620-8843
Inquiry 616.
PKI's SydeWyndr external disk drive.
External Disk Drive
for Macintosh
SydeWyndr is a 3 '/2-inch
external disk drive for
the Apple Macintosh. It ac-
commodates single-sided
microfloppy disks with a
capacity of 400K bytes, for-
matted, and has a transfer
rate of 489.6K bits per
second.
SydeWyndr weighs 3'/2
pounds and comes with a
case and connecting cable
for $3 50. Contact PKI Inc..
2 539 West 237th St. E,
Torrance, CA 90505. (213)
539-2123.
Inquiry 617.
Citizen Daisy-Wheel,
Dot-Matrix Printers
Citizen America has in-
troduced two printers,
one a daisy-wheel unit, the
other a dot-matrix machine.
The Citizen Premiere 3 5
uses print wheels compati-
ble with the Diablo 630; it
can print at 3 5 characters
per second and has a list
price of $599. The printer
also has a low operating
noise level of 55 decibels
and comes with an 8K-byte
buffer. Other features in-
clude interchangeable inter-
face cartridges, proportional
spacing (selectable by a
front-panel switch), and a
12 -month warranty.
The Premiere 3 5 has a
push-style tractor-feed
mechanism. An optional
dual-bin sheet feeder with
envelope-feed capability is
available for $400.
The dot-matrix Citizen
120D prints at 120 cps in
draft mode. It has a list
price of $249. You can
select compatibility with
either the IBM Graphics
Printer or the Epson FX-80
by throwing a switch. Other
features include a 2 5-cps
correspondence-quality
mode (selectable with a
front-panel switch), a 4K-byte
buffer, and a tractor-feed
mechanism.
Contact Citizen America
Corp., 242 5 Colorado Ave..
Santa Monica. CA 90404.
(213) 453-0614.
Inquiry 618.
GTC Laser Printer
GTC Technologies' Blaser
is an 8-page-per-minute
laser printer based on
Canon's LBP-CX printer
engine. The Blaser emulates
the Diablo 630 and NEC
Spinwriter printers for text
output and the text and
graphics images of the IBM
Graphics Printer (which was
based on Epson's FX-80).
While in the IBM Graphics
mode, alphanumeric charac-
ters are printed in a Courier
font rather than the dot-
matrix font, and graphics
characters are printed taking
advantage of 300-dpi capa-
bilities. Standard graphics
are output emulating the
Epson's resolution, although
additional escape-code se-
quences enable more ad-
vanced graphics features.
Each font includes bold-
face, compressed, expanded,
superscript, subscript, and
combinations of these for-
mats, and all characters can
be rotated 90 degrees and
printed in landscape mode.
Ten font cartidges are
available: American Type-
writer. Apollo Proportional.
Roman Proportional. Apollo
Compressed, Elite, Prestige.
Cobra, Courier Italic,
Helvetica, and Legal. Each
font cartridge is $99; a four-
font cartridge is $289.
The Blaser includes a
switch-selectable serial or
parallel interface; both inter-
faces can be enabled simul-
taneously using an optional
$499 adapter. A $699
adapter enables the parallel
port plus four additional
serial ports. Documents
from each computer are buf-
fered in the printer's 64 K-
byte RAM until earlier tasks
are completed.
The Blaser printer has a
list price of $2995. For more
information, contact GTC
Technologies Inc., 216 West
Florence Ave.. Inglewood,
CA 90301. (213) 673-8422.
Inquiry 619.
WHAT'S NEW
A D D - I N S
68020 Development
System for IBM PC,
XT, AT
The IBM PC can be used
as the basis for a
68020 development system
by plugging the Language
Resources PC-020 card into
one of the PC's long slots
and using the accompanying
PC-020 software. You can
write, assemble, test, and ex-
ecute 68020 programs en-
tirely within the PC-020/IBM
PC system.
The PC-020 card contains
a Motorola 68020 32-bit
microprocessor, a 68881
FPU math coprocessor, and
1 megabyte of RAM. The
RAM can be used as expan-
sion memory by PC-DOS
programs.
The development-system
software includes a macro
assembler, a symbolic
debugger, a linker/locator,
and documentation. Any ex-
ecuting 68020 program has
full access to PC-DOS files.
The assembler follows the
Motorola assembler style
and allows you to employ
string macros, conditional
assembly, structured control,
68881 instructions, and
INCLUDE statements.
Language Resources is
also offering C and Pascal
compilers for the PC-020.
These produce native code
and generate full listings
containing symbol tables
and cross-references. The
Pascal compiler is IEEE stan-
dard, and the C compiler is
a complete Kemighan and
Ritchie implementation with
System V extensions. Both
compilers can handle 16-
and 32-bit integers, contain
full floating-point support,
and have run-time libraries.
The PC-020 costs $5995
and works with the IBM PC,
XT. or AT (and plug-com-
The CompuFone board from Computalker Consultants.
patibles) with a hard disk
and PC-DOS (or MS-DOS)
2.0 or higher. The C and
Pascal compilers cost S895
each. Contact Language
Resources Inc.. 4885 River-
bend Rd., Boulder, CO
80301. (303) 449-6809.
Inquiry 620.
80287 Card
for PC AT
MicroWays 287Turbo
card includes an
8-MHz Intel 80287 math co-
processor and its own
8-MHz crystal, allowing
faster execution of complex
math functions than is pos-
sible with a standard 6-MHz
IBM PC AT The design of
the 80287 allows it to
operate at a different clock
speed than the main 80286
processor, but the 80287
normally shares the AT's
6-MHz crystal when it is in-
serted into the AT's co-
processor socket. The
287Turbo board p'ugs into
the same socket but does
not use the AT's crystal.
The 287Turbo card is de-
signed so that the 80287-8
and clock crystal can be
replaced with faster com-
ponents when they are
made available. A program
is included to test all the
802 87s functions.
The 287Turbo board is
$395. Contact MicroWay Inc..
POB 79, Kingston. MA
02364, (617) 746-7341.
Inquiry 621.
Telephone
Management for
the IBM PC
The CompuFone board
for the IBM PC, XT, and
compatibles is a full-length
card comprising three sub-
systems: a digitizer, a Touch-
Tone generator/decoder, and
a telephone interface.
The speech digitizer works
like a solid-state tape
recorder. Voice messages
can be recorded in RAM or
in disk files through tele-
phone or mike-in or line-in
jacks using any of five possi-
ble bit rates. Speech is en-
coded using hardware data
compression for economical
storage; a hard disk is
recommended— a 10-mega-
byte hard disk will hold only
70 minutes of speech. You
must also have at least 128K
bytes of RAM. Speech out-
put can be transmitted over
telephone lines, line-out
jacks, or speaker-out jacks.
The Touch-Tone generator
will initiate phone calls on
either Touch-Tone or rotary
(pulse) dial phones. The
telephone interface monitors
the call to make sure it has
gone through, then relays
your recorded voice mes-
sage. The system can also
detect an incoming call,
answer with your voice, and
record the caller's message.
The Touch-Tone decoder
allows you to use any tele-
phone keypad as a remote
keyboard for your computer.
It is designed to receive
commands or enter data
sent by the caller.
CompuFone costs $645;
the manual can be ordered
separately for $30. Contact
Computalker Consultants.
1730 21st St.. Santa Monica.
CA 90404. (213) 828-6546.
Inquiry 622.
Custom Terminal
Design
The 65/9028 VT is a con-
troller board for a
video terminal that emulates
ANSI X3.64, DEC VT-52, and
Lear Siegler ADM 3A ter-
minals. The 80-column dis-
play mode includes a non-
scrolling 2 5th line. Line
graphics permit plotting,
graphing, and complex
forms display. Each of 10
function keys can contain a
string of 32 characters.
Separate serial communica-
tions and printer ports are
also supported, and the
company says that all
polarities of composite and
separate video and sync
outputs are possible, with
50-Hz or 60-Hz vertical sync.
The 65/9028 VT includes
16K bytes of firmware and
8K of nonvolatile RAM on a
single 5- by 6/2-inch circuit
board. The board is avail-
able as an assembled unit
for $239. A kit version is
$199; the bare circuit board
with the ROM is $49. Con-
tact Linger Enterprises Inc.,
POB 5783, Newport News.
VA 23605, (804) 244-3874.
Inquiry 623.
{continued)
WHAT'S NEW
warn
. .:■:■::.. :.
SOFTWARE
Graphics Software
for Apple II Series
Chartics is a package of
business and scientific
graphics routines that runs
on all Apple II computers.
The software lets you plot
arrays of up to 280 variables
on two high-resolution
pages of video memory.
Charts made with the pro-
gram can be proportioned
to fit into user-defined win-
dows that you can scroll to
any location on the screen.
A scaling function lets you
specify x-minimum, x-maxi-
mum. ^-minimum, and
y-maximum to plot a chart
in oversize or undersize pro-
portions or to display a sec-
tion of a chart. This feature
circumvents problems as-
sociated with negative
numbers by letting you
determine the scale and the
part of the chart to be
shown.
Chartics can import D1F or
ASCII text files, so you can
chart data directly from ap-
plications programs or from
on-line services. It also
loads and saves standard
Apple binary picture files,
so you can incorporate
existing digitized images in-
to charts. The program of-
fers 32 colors on color
monitors and 8 gray tones
on monochrome monitors.
Chartics costs $2 50. It re-
quires 64K bytes. Contact
American Avicultural Art &
Science Inc.. 3268 Watson
Rd.. St. Louis. MO 63139.
(314) 645-4431.
Inquiry 624.
Search Program with
Al Capability
Clarity Software has
released a data-retrieval
program for the IBM PC
series that reportedly can
search at a rate of 11 OK
bytes of disk data per
minute. Called Logic-Line I.
the program retrieves data
from any type of disk-based
file. Clarity claims the
package can work with
document files or database
files, regardless of how the
data is formatted.
In addition to simple
Boolean searches for key-
words. Logic-Line 1 can use
grammatical techniques
based on artificial intelli-
gence to do "fuzzy
searches" or cross-searches
for data that may not con-
form to the original keyword
criterion but which may be
relevant nonetheless.
Logic-Line 1 is written in C
and, until the new year, has
an introductory price of
SI 00. Contact Clarity Soft-
ware. POB 839. Chesterland.
OH 44026, (216) 729-1132.
Inquiry 626.
Oscilloscope Package
for IBM PC, XT, AT
Snapshot Storage Scope
turns the IBM PC, XT, or
AT into a digital oscillo-
scope and data-acquisition
system. The program is
capable of digital or analog
triggered acquisitions, win-
dowed displays, absolute
and relative cursor readouts,
time and magnitude read-
outs, channel labels, and
selective recording of data
to disk.
With Snapshot, you can
acquire and display up to
four channels of data at a
selectable sampling rate of
less than one sample per
minute or as many as
50,000 samples per second.
You can analyze the data
with a commercial package
or with your own program.
Data can be displayed
graphically or in tables. The
display and the stored data
files list the number of
points collected, date and
time, title, duration, and sen-
sitivity of each channel.
Minimum system require-
ments are a PC or compati-
ble, one double-sided
double-density floppy-disk
drive, 2 56K bytes of RAM.
PC-DOS 2.0, an IBM color-
graphics board or compati-
ble, and a MetraByte or
Data Translation analog I/O
board. No programming is
necessary.
Snapshot sells for $495
and comes with a 30-day
trial period. A demo disk is
$8. Contact HEM Engineer-
ing Co., 1702 5 Crescent Dr.,
Southfield. MI 48076, (313)
559-5607.
Inquiry 625.
Draw with
Perspective
MacPerspective is an
architectural-rendering
program for the Macintosh
that lets you construct wire-
frame perspective drawings
of houses, buildings, or
other objects composed
primarily of straight lines.
To create a perspective
drawing, you specify the
WHERE DO NEW PRODUCT ITEMS COME FROM?
The new products listed in this section of BYTE are chosen from the thousands
of press releases, letters, and telephone calls we receive each month from
manufacturers, distributors, designers, and readers. The basic criteria for selection
for publication are. la) does a product match our readers' interests? and (b)
is it new or is it simply a reintroduction of an old item? Because of the volume
of submissions we must sort through every month, the items we publish are
based on vendors' statements and are not individually verified. 1/ you want
your product to be considered for publication {at no charge), send full infor-
mation about it, including its price and an address and telephone number
where a reader can get further information, to New Products Editor. BYTE,
42 5 Battery St.. San Francisco. CA 94111.
location of the observer and
enter x-, y-. and z-co-
ordinates of points on the
object in either feet and
inches or units and decimal
units. The computer deter-
mines the location of each
point as it appears in per-
spective and draws lines be-
tween successive points. (Or
you can use the mouse to
draw lines between points.)
If you change the position
of observation, the com-
puter redraws the object as
seen from the new view-
point. The line drawing can
then be used as a tracing
master from which you can
create a finished rendering.
Drawings can be up to 100
inches wide and printed by
an Imagewriter or Laser-
Writer. With a 128K Mac,
you can draw figures of up
to 1100 points; with a 512K
Mac, you can use 1900
points. The package pro-
vides a rapid zoom-in/zoom-
out capability.
MacPerspective costs $189.
Contact B. Knick Drafting.
313 Marlin Place, Melbourne
Beach, FL 32951, (305)
727-8071.
Inquiry 627.
MS-DOS Version of
CBC Tools
Minnow Bear Computers
has released an MS-
DOS version of its CBC
Tools for use with DRI's
CBASIC compiler. The sup-
plement is intended to take
advantage of the capabilities
of MS-DOS 2.0 (the original
is comprised primarily of
functions portable between
CP/M-80, CP/M-86. and MS-
DOS). The functions in the
supplement were written in
assembly language.
CBC Tools for MS-DOS
costs $175. Contact Minnow
Bear Computers. POB 2233
Station A, Champaign, IL
61820-8233. (217) 398-6883.
Inquiry 628.
432 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 424 for U.S. and Canada.
Inquiry 425 for other International
Computers For
The Blind
Talking computers give blind and visually
impaired people access to electronic infor-
mation. The question is how and how
much?
The answers can be found in "The Second
Beginner's Guide to Personal Computers for
the Blind and Visually impaired" published
by the National Braille Press. This compre-
hensive book contains a Buyer's Guide to
talking microcomputers and large print dis-
play processors. More importantly it in-
cludes reviews, written by blind users, of
software that works with speech.
Send orders to:
National Braille Press Inc.,
88 St. Stephen Street, Boston, MA 02115
(617) 266-6160
NBP is a nonprofit braille printing and publishing house
MULTILINGUAL WORD PROCESSING
This is lultilinwal text
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MS-tTO-MI 1 1MB It 1
288-2886-899 I 45 «7
99S-9999-999 I 1 M I
1M-IMB-IM 1998 99 j
- Color support
- Arithmetic calculations on text
- Integrated Communications
- Transmit and receive on disk
- Automatic hyphenation
- Document repaglnatlon
- Search and replace
- Context sensitive help
- Easy to use and learn
- In English, French, German
- In Dutch and Greek.
- IBM PC/XT/AT and Compatibles
Only $259 IncL Latin and Japanese/Greek font Junior version $49.95
M/CRO BUSINESS PRODUCTS g
- Up to eight fonts on screen
■ Graphics and character modes
- 1 mage based Word processing
- Line graphics and bar charts
- Independent columns
- Real time text dragging
- Typewriter emulation
Translation to and from ASCII
- Printing to printer or disk
- Comprehensive printer tables
■ Numeric tabs and Indents
- Headers and footers
II 11E Avenue Observatoire P.O.Box 530
jlh/inp Brussete, Belgium Wayne. MJ 07470
Tel: 375-0953 Tlx: 26340
Tel: 201/684-4142
COMPLETES THE EQUATION
FOR COST-EFFECTIVE
CIRCUIT SIMULATION
IBM PC plus PSPICE equals
precise, mainframe-performance
circuit simulation of up to 120
transistors. Design in
mere minutes complicated
circuits that used to take
hours. Check performance
under "real" conditions in-
cluding transient, temp-
erature, and frequency
response, without costly
breadboarding. "See" trou-
blesome currents and
voltages formerly too low
to detect. Perfect each
circuit without gobbling
up expensive main-
frame time.
And with PROBE graphics
"software oscilloscope? PSPICE/
TURBINE hardware accelerator,
and user-changeable models
options, your PSPICE micro will
surpass VAX 11/780 perfor-
mance at a fraction of the cost.
Affordably priced at
$950.00, PSPICE completes the
equation for success. Phone
for details.
MicroSim Corporation
23175 La Cadena Drive
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
714/770-3022
VAX is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.
IBM-PC is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
Inquiry 422 for End-Users. Inquiry 423 for DEALERS ONLY
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 433
-The Buyer's Mart-
A Directory of Products and Services
THE BUYER'S MART is a new monthly advertising section which enables
readers to easily locate suppliers by product category. As a unique feature, each
BUYER'S MART ad includes a Reader Service number to assist interested
readers in requesting information from participating advertisers.
RATES: 1x-$350 3x-$325 6x-$300
Prepayment must accompany each insertion.
AD FORMAT: Each ad will be designed and typeset by BYTE. Advertisers must
furnish typewritten copy. Ads can include headline (23 characters maximum),
descriptive text (250 characters maximum), plus company name, address and
telephone number. Do not send logos or camera-ready artwork.
DEADLINE: Ad copy is due 2 months prior to issue date. For example: December
issue closes on October 1. Send your copy and payment to THE BUYER'S MART,
BYTE magazine, 70 Main Street, Peterborough, NH 03458. For more informa-
tion call Karen Burgess at BYTE 603-924-9281.
ACCESSORIES
ACCESSORIES
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
SOFTWARE PACKAGING, DISKS
Cloth binders & slips like IBM's. Vinyl binders, boxes, and
tolders-many sizes Disk pages, envelopes & labels Low
qty. imprinting Bulk & branded disks. Much Mprel Low
prices Fast service Call or write for FREE CATALOG
Anthropomorphic Systems Limited
376-B East St. Charles Road
Lombard, IL 60148
1-800-DEAL-NOW (312) 629-5160
VERBATIM DATALIFE
SS/DD 10 PACK IN A PLASTIC BOX
NOW ONLY $16.50
WHILE SUPPLIES LAST
MASTERCARD AND VISA ACCEPTED
CALL TOLL FREE
950-1088-78775437
LOCAL: (313) 363-0100
- VIDEO STORES «-
We need ambitious dealers in all U.S. states
and Canada to market a powerful system to
computerize video tape rental stores.
WINCHESTER DATA
PRODUCTS INC.
3301-Executive Drive., #204, Raleigh, N.C. 27609
(919) 872-0995
COMMUNICATIONS
FABRIC DUST COVERS
Heavy poly/cotton. Six colors. 1000 different
covers available for Computers, Printers,
Typewriters, etc. PLUS, custom work
Monogramming and screen printing
available In our 4th year of serving you. . .
COVERS UNLIMITED
POB 381076, Germantown, TN 38183-1076
800-821-7709 or 901-754-4465
FREE DISK JACKET SAMPLE
New low-cost DISKAT" FLOPPY DISK JACKET
gives best protection plus way to print and display
directory info. Made from heavy-duty antistatic vinyl.
the DISKAT" dual-pocket design stores disk &
displays sorted printout of directory data. Send for
a FREE sample and software offer.
LEINBACH INCORPORATED
P.O. Box 730, Dept. B12, Nyack, NY 10960
(914) 353-0990
SMART ANSWERING MACHINE
SAM transforms your IBM PC into an intelligent phone
answering & real-voice messaging center FEATURES:
999 personal messages, call screening, message tor-
warding, timed or grouped message delivery, sortable
phonebook/autodialer, time/date log, voice prompted
remote access, AND MORE!! All hardware & software
included. Retail $295, VISA/MC,
DIALECTRON, INC.
2035 California St., Ste #17, Mountain View, CA 94040
(415)960-3040
Inquiry 727
CONTRACTS
LESS NOISE! MORE COOLING!
Stop irritating fan noise & overheating prob-
lems with the SILENCER cooling system. It
utilizes a super quiet (84% less noise), West
German, all metal, 4V2" fan. Provides up to
100% more cooling. Mounts on the back of the
IBM PC. $79.95 + $4 s/h VISA/MC
PC COOLING SYSTEMS
31510 Via Ararat Dr., Bonsall, CA 92003
(619) 723-9513
DATA CABLES & PARTS
EIA RS232-C Data Cables ■ standard, extended
distance. RS232-C Teflon Assemblies Also Centronics
(parallel). Coaxial (RGS9U, RG62A/U, Dual Wang.
Twin-axial). Ethernet, Ribbon, IBM. DEC Compatible
cables. AB switches, connector parts, bulk cable,
tools & hardware (wall plates) Send for Catalog.
Communication Cable Co.
POB 600-B, Wayne, PA 19087
215-644-1900
FOR ENTREPRENEURS
Legal contracts for hardware/software developers Employee
agreement, non-disclosure form, contracts for sale (hardware
and/or software), consulting, development, hardware & soft-
ware maintenance, non-competition, project delivery & more
$50 Waters Publishing $50
8235 Douglas - Suite 1000
Dallas, TX 75225
(214) 369-8108
inquiry 777
Inquiry 792
FUNKY LOWERCASE?
EPROMS to fix lowercase and provide custom
fonts for the following PRINTERS and
COMPUTERS:
•GORILLA/GP-100X/MPS801 $14.95*
•Model l/IM/4 (video) $14.95*
•DMP100/LPVII $29.00*
Send for sample text:
THE ELECTRONIC CLOSET
8187 Blakely Court West • Bainbridge Is., WA 98110
Self-Inking Printer Ribbon
For users of Okidata and other open spool ribbon
printers. Controlled Printout Devices are a new kind
of printing ribbon that re-ink themselves, and will
last 15 times longer than the ribbon you are now
using. For further information please call or write
CONTROLLED PRINTOUT DEVICES, INC.
POB 869. Baldwin Rd.. Arden, NC 28704
(704) 684-9044
BOOKS / DISKS / VIDEOS
DISK CONVERSION
CONVERSION SERVICES
Convert any 9 track magnetic tape to or from over
500 formats including 3Vz", 5W, 8" disk formats &
word processors. Disk to disk conversions also
available. Call for more info. (312) 459-6010
Pivar Computing Services, Inc.
• *
47 W. Dundee Road
Wheeling, IL 60090
* •
Inquiry 779
BLANK FUNCTION KEY TEMPLATES
Write convenient commands next to your function keys on re-
versible plastic templates Styles to fit IBM-PC, Compatibles,
HP-150 Keytronics 5151, and others Custom also available
$4.95 Pkg. of 3 (Plus $1 s&h)
1-800-231-5413
In CA 1-800-523-5441
Free catalog of other helpful products available by
circling number below on inquiry card.
ATTENTION PROGRAMMERS!!
Programmers' Handbook of
Computer Printer Commands Is a must!
Programming Codes for 100's of Printers.
* 43 Manufacturers * Daisy * DMP
* 272 pgs. in Table Form
* Info: Code, Hex/Dec. Equiv., and Description
* Dealer inquiries invited
TO ORDER CALL OR WRITE:
CARDINAL POINT INCORPORATED
P.0 Box 596, Ellettsville, IN 47429
(812) 876-7S11 (M-F 9-5)
INCOMPATIBLE WORD PROCESSORS?
We convert to and from: XEROX, DEC, IBM,
LANIER, WANG, PC-DOS, CONVERGENT
TECHNOLOGY, WORDSTAR, MULT1MATE,
SAMNA ASCII, MICOM.
Also most CPVM systems.
LOWEST PRICES
DATA CONVERSION INC.
6310 Caballero Blvd. • Buena Park, CA 90620
(714) 522-7762 (600) 624-4851 In CA.
Inquiry "'0
Inquiry 713.
Inquiry 724
434 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
The Buyer's Mart-
DOCUMENTATION
HARDWARE
HARDWARE
Computer Assembly Manuals
BIG BLUE SEED for /SM' BUILDERS: parts list, place-
men! diagrams, instructions for assembling over 55 IBM-
compatible bare cards - $14.95.
APPLE SEED II lor APPLE- BUILDERS: in the style
of the BIG BLUE SEED with instructions for assembling
70 Apple-compatible bare cards - $12.95.
BOTH ASSEMBLY MANUALS FOR $25.00
NuScope Associates
P.O. Box 790 • Lewiston NY • 14092
8097 PROTOTYPING BOARD
Develop applications for the Intel 8096 Fami-
ly of Microprocessors with the CSC-8097
Board - the ONLY board available for
development with Intel's 8097 16-bit single
chip microcontroller. Price: $750
Caldwell Systems Corp.
POB 617, San Ramon, CA, 94583
415-833-1850
Inquiry 712
BUYING A PROGRAMMER?
Information on EPROM programmers for
Engineering, Production and Field
Service.
Specifications and prices upon request.
SHERMAN PIRKLE, INC.
617-861-6688
DUPLICATING SERVICES
WESTERN TRANSDATA, INC.
Why risk duplicating your important programs on your com-
puter, when our equipment is designed solely to duplicate disks
& verify their perfection 10EW Over 600 formats 3V2". 5V*"
& 8". Plus serialization, copy protection, labeling, packaging,
shrink-wrapping and fast, personalized service.
WESTERN TRANSDATA, INC.
1701 E. Edinger Ave. A-7
Santa Ana, CA 92705
714/547-3383 (collect)
BDS LASER PRINTER! — $2,559.00
COMPLETE WITH SOFTWARE!
8 Pages per Minute, 9 Type Fonts, (16 with optional
Cartridge), Down-Loadable (Design your own) Fonts,
Parallel (Centronics, IEEE-488) and Serial (RS-232C)
Interfaces, Landscaping (Graphics Intermixed with
Text), Magnification, Sideways Print, and Non-Volatile
Memory for Control Features,
HIGH TECHNOLOGY, INC.
9312 W. 92nd Ave., Westminster, CO 80020
(303) 431-7596 VISA and MASTERCARD Accepted'
PCjr ADD-ON DRIVES
Upgrade your PCjr with our user-installed add-on
drive system. It includes a replacement disk con-
troller (operates up to 3 drives), a 2 drive cable, ex-
ternal 360K dnve(s) & software for operating the extra
drives. Prerequisite: DOS 2. 1 , $295 (one drive), $449
(2 drives). $149 (controller only). $6 shipping.
Call (505) 292-4182
J & M Systems, Ltd.
15100-A Central SE, Albuquerque, NM 87123
Inquiry 793
Inquiry 753
DUPLICATION SOLUTIONS
We have the answer to your duplication needs,
no matter what the volume We supply auto-
loaders, disks, and technical support. We pro-
vide copy protection, serialization, package
assembly, and distributive shipping.
MegaSoft
P.O. Box 1143, Freehold, NJ 07728
1-800-222-0490 201-462-7628 (in NJ)
nquiry 762
TURBOCHARGER FOR IBM
^ Increases processing speed over 300%
>-- Full software compatibility with PC and XT
*■ Supports Intel 10 MHz 8087 coprocessor
Everett/Charles" Marketing Services
6101 Cherry Avenue
Fontana, CA 92335
800-443-1860 Calif. 800-821-0589
E(E)PROM, PROM PROGRAMMER
Program all EPROMS. EEPROMS,
microcomputers, zero-power RAMs, 35 nS
PROMS for under $300!
B & C Microsystems
See our ad on page 369.
ENTERTAINMENT
* * * GAMES !!! * * *
Disk full of Public Domain Games for the Apple
lie, lie, II + . Games like Blackjack. Checkers,
Othello I, Adventure, Asteroyder and much more
for $19.95!!! including shipping.
Gennaro Conte Associates, Inc.
2522 Holland Ave., Bronx, NY 10467
CompuServe ID:74005,1064
1/2 IN. 9 TRACK COUPLER
READ and WRITE 1/2 in magnetic tape with format-
ted 9 track drives. Runs all speeds and densities in
PC, XT, & AT running MS-DOS or IBM XENIX. Data
transfers up to 904K bytes/second Couplers start
at $880 Complete sub-systems start at $2995
Overland Data, Inc.
5644 Kearny Mesa Rd„ Ste. A, San Diego, CA 921 1 1
(619)-571-5555 and TELEX 754923 OVERLAND
POWERLINE GREMLINS??
POWER FAILURES??
The MEIRICK STANDBY POWER SYSTEM
is the TOTAL SOLUTION to your
powerline problems.
240 watt system - $365: 400 watt system - $495:
800 watt system - $795
MEIRICK Inc., POWER SYSTEMS DIV.
Box 298, Frisco. CO 80443 303-668-3251
Inquiry 776
Inquiry 763
HARDWARE
PROM/PAL BIPOLAR PROGRAMMER
IBM PC
EPROM PROG— S250, PAL OPTION— $250,
MP OPTION— $100, BIPOLAR OPTION— $350
■MS-DOS, CP/M-86 Software handles 2716 through 27256
EPROM • 16 20 and 24 pins BI-POLAR PROMS • From MMI,
SIG, HAR, Tl & AMD • 20 and 24 pins PAL from MMI. AMD.
NAT & Tl • Also 8741/48/49/51 MP
Advanced Microcomputer Systems Inc.
2780 S.W. 14th St. • Pompano Beach, FL 33069
(305) 975-9515
* IBM PC XT AT SALE *
* COMPAQ CMPTR SALE *
TEAC 55BV DISK DRIVE I B9.00
SEAGATE 10MB W/CNTR $475.00
SEAGATE 20MB w/CNTR $595.00
IRWIN TAPE BACKUP 10 MB HALF HT $550.00
POWER SUPPLY, CABLES, DOS. CARDS LOW
CHIPS, MONITORS, KEYBOARDS CALL
(213) 770-6166
MAX GROUP CORP.
17000 S. Vermont Ave.. Unit J, Gardena, CA 90247
Telex: 5106003099 MAX GROUP LAS
MULTI-FUNCTION Bd $189.95
includes 384K of RAM. Serial. Pari. Clock, Software
256K RAM Card (full) lor IBM's 129.95
Team 300/1200 modem, int. or ext.,
Hayes Compt 199.95
Radio Shack 64K Color Computer II 149.95
External Drives 5Va " for Radio Shack in easel 25.95
Epson Printers, Cheap! Call for quotes.
5512 Poplar Ave.
901-761-4565
C.C. Distributing
Memphis. TN 38119
Inquiry 761
inquiry 714.
APPLE & IBM PERIPHERALS!
FACTORY DIRECT! lie 64K/80 Column Bd $39.
II + /lie Cooling Fan $24.95. II + /lie Mouse w/SFWR
$49.95. Joystick III w/fire on stick Apple or IBM
$24.95. 10 Ft IBM Parallel Cable $12.95. RAM Set/9
PC-$5 XT-$7. Add $3 Shipping Write for complete list
NEXO DISTRIBUTION
8824 Golf Drive - Spring Valley, CA 92077
(619) 589-7928
$59 CONTROL COMPUTER
6802MPU, 16 line I/O, RAM, EPROM socket,
Power Supply 100 lot price, Evaluation unit
with test EPROM $99
Hawaiian Sky Telescopes
74-5626 Alapa St., Kailua-Kona, HI 96745
(808) 326-2190
100% XT COMPATIBLE $1395.
The ASCENDANT is 100% compatible with the IBM
PC XT and has more standard features than the IBM
PC at a lower price. Standard Items included are 130
wps serial & parallel interface, two V! height floppy
drives, expandable to 51 2K plus much, much more. . .
1 year limited warranty. VISA/MC
IC ELECTRONICS, INC.
2920 Schwartz Rd., Columbus, OH 43232
614-236-0106
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 435
The Buyer's Mart-
PERIODICALS
SOFTWARE/BUSINESS
SOFTWARE/BUSINESS
DISCOVER ROBOTICS
Robot Experimenter'" magazine shows you how to
take the next step in the computer revolution by free-
ing your computer to roam about the house REx
is designed for both educators and experimenters.
Subscribe now to explore the world of tomorrow
• $24.00 for 12 issues. MCA/ ISA/CHECK •
Robot Experimenter
POB 458, Peterborough, NH 03458
603/924-3843
LP88-LINEAR PROGRAMMING
A powerful menu-driven system for solving linear programs w/
up to 255 constraints & 2255 variables Features include in-
teractive & batch operation, spreadsheet-style input & editing
storage of problems & bases. Simplex Algorithm restart, report
generator, sensitivity analysis. Req. IBM PC. 192K $99 w/8087
support, users guide VISA/MC.
EASTERN SOFTWARE PRODUCTS INC.
P.O Box 15328, Alexandria, VA 22309
(703) 549-5469
PC-File III™ Version 4
Search, sort, browse, global changes, macros, mailing
labels, format reports with selection & calculations, sub-
totals, totals, averages, encryption Exchange data with
1-2-3, WORD. WordStar Over 190,000 users $59.95 +
$5 s/h. For IBM PC
ButtonWare, Inc.
P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue, WA 98006
1 -800- J-BUTTON
Inquiry 784
Inquiry 707
SOFTWARE/BUSINESS
DATA ENTRY SYSTEM
Heads-down data entry with two-pass verification for
the PC/XT/AT & compatibles. Loaded with features
like: Auto dup & skip, verify bypass, range checks
& table lookups. Fully menu driven only $395
Call for free 30 day trial period.
COMPUTER KEYES
6519 193 SW, Lynnwood, WA 98036
(206) 776-6443
TSA 88 TRANSPORTATION
A GENERAL-PURPOSE system for solving transpor-
tation, assignment and transhipment problems
Splves transportation problems with up to 510 origins
and/or destinations by applying the Transportation
Simplex Algorithm. Menu-driven with features similar
to LP88 Requires 192K, $99 with 8087 support
users guide. VISA/MC.
EASTERN SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, INC.
POB 15328, Alexandria, VA 22309
(703) 549-5469
PC-File/R™
All the power of PC-File III plus: Relatipnal link to
other databases, integrated letter writing & mail-
merge, cpntext sensitive pop-up help windows New
binary search retrieves data hundreds of times faster
$149.95 + $5 s/h.
ButtonWare, Inc.
P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue, WA 98006
1-800- J-BUTTON
EXPERT CHOICE®
Designed for today's decision makers— gam the com-
petitive edge Facilitates complex decisions based on
both objective & subjective factors about criteria & alter-
natives Uses, procurement, resource allocation, strategic
planning, R&D, marketing, finance, employee selection
& evaluation DEMO AVAILABLE $10.
Decision Support Software, Inc.
1300 Vincent Place-Dept. B, McLean, VA 22101
(703) 442-7900 (800) 368-2022
WINDOWING FOR dBASE III
dWINDOW" is a unique utility program (9K) that
dramatically enhances the screen presentations ot
dBASE By patching itself into memory dWINDOW adds
a series of new commands and functions to the dBASE
repertoire THE EFFECT IS SPECTACULAR!
S99 plus shipping
Liberty Bell Publishing
618 NW Glisan, Suite 203, Portland, OR 97209
(BOO) 547-3000 (Dept. 604)
ABACUS
ONLY FROM SUNSOFT Complete Accounting System for
$49 95 plus S&H SOURCE CODE only $20 extra"! Complete
documentation Runs on CP/M & PC-DOS systems with
CBASIC. 2-5%" DSDD min
' completely menu driven
' lull file maintenance
• GIL, AIP. A/R. P/R, CIA
SUNSOFT Inc.
PO 1168, Marquette, Ml 49855
For orders 1-800-624-7008 For info (906) 226-3370
Inquiry 760
Inquiry 789
ENHANCE YOUR PRINTER!!
Print in a variety of fonts and sizes with your Epson
(or oompatibie) printer. Prints SIDEWAYS too Great
for letters, spreadsheets, . .even signs and banners!
Create your own fonts to print. DigiCon Print
Package-$49.95 (for IBM PC).
Digital Concepts, Inc.
P.O. Box 8345, Pittsburgh, PA 15218
(412) 623-8314
STANDARD FORMS
Easy to use with on screen step by step prompts.
Prints data required in proper spaces on any
preprinted form that fits in your printer. Free phone
support. $79 (VISA/MC/AMEX), MS-DOS/CPM-80
Other original software. FREE catalogue.
MICRO-ART PROGRAMMERS
173 Birch Avenue, Cayucos, CA 93430
(805) 995-2329 (24 hours)
EXPENSE MANAGER
Customizable expense data base system and report
writer Produces tax-saving summaries Analyzes by
category, code and date Manages up to
$1,000,000 and 1 ,000 accounts! IBM PC/XT/jr 128K
or Apple ll + /e/c 64K
Only $39.95 — Money Back Guarantee!!
Network Services
1915 Huguenot Road, Richmond, VA 23235
(804) 379-2253 MCA/ISA
Inquiry 773
TAX-PREP™ '85 TRIAL
Multiplan or 1-2-3 users, easily prepare totally
professional tax returns. Try TAX-PREP '85
(for 84 returns) thru November for $15 + 3
s/h and we'll give you $15 off TAX-PREP '86
avail in Jan, for $129.95. YES, it has the
features you want!!! FREE info.
EZWare Corporation
29 Bala Ave Dept. G., Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004
(215) 667-4064
► TIME & BILLING -
400 clients/20 partners/80 job & 40 out of pocket
categories/20 areas of practice/fixed fee or hour-
!y/more! Prints billmg/statements/aged rec's/more 1
Free phone support $149 (VISA/MC/AMEX) MS-
DOS/CPM-80. Other original software. FREE
catalogue
MICRO-ART PROGRAMMERS
173 Birch Avenue, Cayucos, CA 93430
(805) 995-2329 (24 hours)
1985 TAX PREPARATION
Fast, easy to use package prepares and prints 1985
Federal income tax returns using form 1040 Fully interac-
tive, menu driven Follows IRS forms. Supports 26 forms
plus multiples. MS/PC-DOS, 128K; Prof $149.00; Pers
$39.95; VISA/MC ($5 SH)
Dunphy Systems, Inc.
P.O. Box 32a Worthington, OH 43085-0326
614-459-2349 (orders 800-622-4070; III. 800-942-7317)
inquiry 738
nquiry 766
dFELLER Inventory
A business inventory program written in
modifiable dBASE source code. The menu-driven
program lets you locate items by inventory name
or number. It keeps track of reorder points, ven-
dors, average cost, and other info. Requires
dBASE II or III. PC-DOS/CPM $150.
Feller Associates
550 CR PPA, Route 3, Ishpeming, Ml 49849
(906) 486-6024
PC-Write v Shareware
Fast, friendly, flexible word processor and text
editor for IBM PC. Easy to use Advanced features
like macros, split screen, footnotes, mailmerge.
Many good reviews, thousands sold. All software,
manual on disk $10. OK to copy! Register for full
manual, support, source $75.
Quicksort (206) 282-0452 Visa/MC
219 First N #224J, Seattle, WA 98109
FEDERAL TAX SOFTWARE
for individual returns. Print up to 26
forms/schedules using IRS forms or overlays. 3
levels of the program: $75; $350 or $600 in CP/M,
MS-DOS, PC-DOS. Demo available thru:
1040 PLUS
6730 E. McDowell #103, Scottsdale, AZ 85257
(602) 941-3407
Inquiry 700
436 B YTE • DECEMBER I985
The Buyer's Mart
SOFTWARE/BUSINESS
SOFTWARE/GENERAL
SOFTWARE/GRAPHICS
PC-Type"
Fast, compact, capable & easy! Help panels, hands-
on lutonal, macros, multiple-line headings & footings.
DOS path support, print spooling, block operations,
etc. ASCII files Install program allows customization.
$59.95 + $5 s/h For 128K IBM PC
ButtonWare, Inc.
P O Box 5786. Bellevue. WA 98006
1-800- J-BUTTON
TURN ON YOUR PRINTER
Eleven printer fonts and printer control menu. In-
cludes Italics. Script. Correspondence Optional
Fonts Scientific. Russian. Greek and Hebrew
($20@) Okidata 92. 93, Epson FX80. 100. Star
Micronics. MS-DOS. CPM-80 ®
CUSTOM CHARACTER SET S46.50.
WOODSMITH SOFTWARE
Rt. 3-Box 550A, Nashville, IN 47448
(812) 988-2137
THE DRAWING TABLET
Draw lines, circles, parallelograms, arcs. Paint
with 100 different brush sizes in four shades
Block functions with the ability to replace overlay,
inlay. Save to disk or printer. Store symbols in
libraries. Text capability Only $49.95 + 3.00 s&h
K SOFTWARE HOUSE
Rt 2. Box 83B1 Uniortville, TN 37180
(615) 294-5090
inquiry 796
PC-Calc™ Version 3
64 columns x 256 rows, math and stat. functions,
horizontal bar graphs, title locking, individually ad-
justable column widths, IF THEN, link to other
spreadsheets or PC-File databases, much more. Re
quires 256K IBM PC $59.95 + $5 s/h
ButtonWare, Inc.
P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue. WA 98006
1-800-J-BUTTON
WORD IMAGE
Edit 4 files, undo, sub-directory, big files, macros,
on-screen attributes, command driven, batch files,
search/replace in ranges, help, all printers, manual,
fast, MORE, Needs 320KB, PCDOS 2,0 + , and
360K disk Intro $50.00, 30-Day trial
Software Ideology
P.O. Box 305, Brooklyn, N Y. 11204
718-236-3876
ATTENTION ENGINEERS
Easy-to-use graphics software for the IBM PC, XT,
AT, and compatibles. Full 2-D and 3-D screen
graphing capabilities including contours. No pro-
gramming needed! Interface to pen-plotter.
OMNIPLOT [S] $195
OMNIPLOT [P] $195
BOTH $295
MICROCOMPAT1BLES
301 Prelude Drive * Silver Spring, MD 20901
(301) 593-0683
Inquiry 710
Inquiry 787
INCOME TAX SOFTWARE
TAXWORKS"* software to enter, calculate, and print
Federal Form 1040 and 17 supporting schedules. 1985
marks 3rd year of production. 240 programs sold last
season Free phone support For IBM. MS-DOS,
CPM-80 Federal $400. California $100 Demo $25
TAXWORKS®
B81 Alma Real Dr.. Suite 2
Pacific Palisades. CA 90272
(213) 459-2746, In Calif (800) 232- "1040
POWERFUL FILE MANAGEMENT
l.DT'S FileManager® (or people senous about their
systems No kid stuft— only powerful managing tools
File sort. copy. move, delete, search & change attributes
Undelete and clear files
EDLIN enhancer & batch mode clean up and more.
Menu driven
$34.95 (about Va Norton's) MC/VISA
INTEGRATED DATA TECHNOLOGY, INC.
4775 Bunchberry Lane, Colorado Springs, CO 80917
ORDERS: 303-488-2583
GRAPHICS PRINTER SUPPORT
AT LASV Use the PrtSc key to make quality scaled
B&W or color reproductions of your display on any
dot matrix, inkjet. or laser pnnter. GRAFPLUS sup-
ports all versions of PC or MS-DOS with IBM, Tec-
mar, and Hercules graphics boards $59.95
Jewell Technologies, Inc.
4302 SW Alaska St., Suite 207
Seattle, WA 98116
(206) 937-1081
Inquiry 752
SOFTWARE/GENERAL
MICRO BEATS RACETRACK!!
Earn profits to afford peripherals and goodies to
build the "System of Your Dreams " Dick Mitchell
did it, A Winning Thoroughbred Strategy, book and
software program $59.95. Book only. $29.95. Send
for literature and review
Cynthia Publishing Company
4455 Los Feliz Blvd., Suite 1106B
Los Angeles, California 90027
(213) 664-3165
US-ATLAS
Geographic locator of 29,000 U S cities for IBM-PC
& compatibles. Computes Great-Circle distance be-
tween places Draws states with 640 x 200 graphics
Has 9 options $39.95 check or m o. to address
below
ILLSTON PC-PROGRAMS
1930 Hayselton Dr., Jefferson City. MO 65101
(314) 635-3417
THE DGI TYPE SHOP
Turn your IBM or APPLE computer and HEWLETT-
PACKARD plotter into a desktop publishing system THE
DGI TYPE SHOP offers a quick and economical alter-
native to typesetting PLOTSETTING Price $175. Ten op-
tional fonts that range from a very formal script to Greek
- Scientific are available
DECISION GRAPHICS, INC.
PO. Box 2776-B, Littleton, Colorado 80161
Phone (303) 796-0341
Inquiry 722
Inquiry 748
SOFTWARE/LANGUAGES
MicroGANTT®
Control your project' You describe the work,
MicroGANTT calculates the schedule and budget Op
timize the schedule interactively Customize the reports
Subtasking, fixed and variable costs, multi-project
resource allocation, unlimited size and scope GANTT
PERT. CPM. DOD-7000 Call or write for free catalog
Earth Data Corporation
P.O. Box 13168. Richmond. VA 23225
(804) 231-0300
L ESCRIBE EN ESPANOL?
Escribien. Ihe first Spanish spelling checker, works
with DOS. CP/M and most word processors
Features as in best English checkers but designed
for Spanish. Includes on-line verb conjugation Order
toll free 1-800-538-8157 (In CA 1-800-672-3470)
X806 $99.95 through 12/85. demo $14.95.
Ibersoft Inc.
P.O. Box 3455. Trenton. NJ 08619
609-890-1496
CROSS ASSEMBLERS with
"UNIVERSAL" LINKER and
POWERFUL LIBRARIANS
for IBM PC MS-DOS
Full featured for most microprocessors
ENERTEC, INC.
BOX 1312, Lansdale. PA 19446
215-362-0966 MC/VISA
Inquiry 747
•• THE HYPNOTIST "
with HEART-RATE BIOFEEDBACK PERIPHERAL
includes Hypnotism/User's Manual— $99 95
* PERSONALITY ANALYZER "
includes book "PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME
audio tape by IU psychology prof —$49 95
for Psychiatrists; School, Marriage & Career
Counselors, Psychologists and Self-analysts
PSYCOM SOFTWARE INTERNATIONAL. INC.
2118 Forest Lake Dr.. Cinti.. OH 45244
TELEORDERS 7 DAYS: (513) 474-2188
Key Kit
The real TIME SAVER
Decrease your work load by placing repeated keystrokes
on one key Works concurrently with your software
Supports block graphics, foreign language letters and
math symbols Customize your software and have things
your way For IBM-PC/XT/AT, $56.00
G&S
P.O. Box 34, Troy, PA 16947
(717) 297-3001
BYSO® LISP
for IBM PC
INTERPRETER $150
(includes Visual Syntax®)
COMPILER $395
for stand alone expert systems, etc
Levien Instrument Co.
POB 31, McDowell, VA 24458
(703) 396-3345
Inquiry 780
Inquiry 742
DECEMBER I985 -BYTE 437
The Buyer's Mart
SOFTWARE/LANGUAGES
SOFTWARE/LANGUAGES
SOFTWARE/SCIENTIFIC
Finally. BSW-Make.
A complete implementation of rne Unix make" facdity for MS-
DOS No more recompiling every fiie in aghl after an edit Jus:
type "make" and BSW-Make automatically builds your pro
duct quickly and correctly BSW-Make supports • most com-
pilers and assemblers • MS-DOS v2 00 or later • macros for
parameterized builds * default rules
Only $69.95 postpaid (Mass residents add 5% sales tax)
The Boston Software Works
120 Fulton Street. Boston, MA 02109
(617) 367-6846
Minnesota SNOBOL4 Language
Powerful string & data handling facilities Interpreter com-
patible with mainframe SNOBOL4 32K strings, 32 bit in-
tegers, 8087 for float & large memory model Sample pgms
include ELIZA. For > 1 28K IBM PC/MS DOS or compatible
Authoritative "green" book by Griswotd available
Guide + 5Vi" diskette $44.95
Guide + green book + dkt $59.95
Green book only $24.95
Postpaid in USA In NY add tax VISA/MC (914) 271-5855
BERSTIS INTERNATIONAL
POB 441. Millwood. NY 10520
HALLEY'S COMET
KNOW WHEN AND WHERE TO LOOK WITH
OR WITHOUT A TELESCOPE'
Provides sky locations of the comet, moon, and major
planets for any place and time m 1985-86 Apple, IBM,
TRS-80 (I) versions open (in BASIC), with explanatory
booklet $30 plus s/h and tax in CA VISA/MC
MSAR Software Co.
360 Moore St.. Santa Cruz. CA 95060
To Order Call Now 408-426-7019
Inquvy 7 06
Inquiry 705
Inquiry 770
CBTREE FOR C PROGRAMMERS
Provides enhanced file handling calls directly in-
to C programs. Maintains balanced B-trees, sup-
ports unlimited number of keys, data records,
and key lengths Fast, Flexible, Efficient No
royalties Source Code Included.
Nevtf Low Price $99
PEACOCK SYSTEMS, INC.
2009 Hileman Rd Falls Church, VA 22043
(703) 893-0118
UNIVERSAL CROSS-REFERENCER
—WORKS WITH ALL LANGUAGES-
BASIC. C, Pascal, FORTRAN, COBOL. ASM
You name it!
MS/PC-DOS V2+ IBM PC, XT & compatibles
Unbeatable al $39.95 + $3 s/h. MC/Visa/Check
DALSOFT SYSTEMS
3565 High Vista, Dept E2
Dallas, TX 75234 (214) 247-7695
► SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR <*
Memory resident emulation of the HP-11C plus direct
insertion of results in foreground program, graphi-
cally presented, decimal, hex. binary, & octal opera-
tions, boolean functions and more. Mouse support
8087 or Standard versions $49.95 + 3.00 s&h
K SOFTWARE HOUSE
Rt. 2. Box 83B1 Unionville, TN 37180
(615) 294-5090
Inquiry 778
Inquiry 723
SOFTWARE/SCIENTIFIC
SOFTWARE/SYSTEM
FORTRAN PROGRAMMERS
Discover F77L
A Full FORTRAN 77 Language System
for the IBM PC and Compatibles
■THE PROGRAMMER'S FORTRAN"
Lahey Computer Systems Inc.
31 244 Palos Verdes Dr. West. Suite 243
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90274
213-541-1200
Affordable Engineering Software
CALL or WRITE for FREE CATALOG
Circuit Analysis • Root Locus • Thermal
Analysis • Matrix Manipulation • Signal Pro-
cessing • Filter Design • Graphics • Text
Proofreader
BV Engineering
2200 Business Way Suite 207 Riverside, CA 92501
VISA/MC (714) 781-0252
CONFIDENTIAL CRYPTON
Protect Confidentiality
• Encrypt/Decrypt PC Files
• Under Password Control
• With Menu-Driven Software
Only $35 COD or VISA7MC
To order call/write: (206) 842-8196
ARCorp
721 Park Ave., Winslow, WA 98110
Inquiry 758
Inquiry 703
Tools for CB80 & CB86
BDOS, DOS, and BIOS calls from CB80 and CB86 1
CBC Tools includes functions for directory access,
string ops, a debugger, radix conversion, command
line parsing, quicksorts, bit and byte ops. and much
more Available for CP/M-80, CP/M-86, and PC-DOS
for $180.00.
Minnow Bear Computers
POB 2233 Sta A. Champaign. IL 61820-8233
(21 7) 398-6883
RATS!
RATS is a fast, accurate & complete regression pack-
age with unsurpassed POWER Has both time-series
& cross section analysis Includes Box-Jenkins, logit
& probit Spectral analysis & graphics also available
Requires 256K RAM. IBM PC or compatible $200
MC/Visa
VAR Econometrics
P.O. Box 19334. Minneapolis, MN 55419
(612) 822-9690
pcSHARE MULTI-USER O/S
pcSHARE allows your IBM-XT/AT or compatible to sup-
port up to 5 users running 1-2-3, dBASE, WordStar, etc.
on inexpensive serial CRTs For software developers,
pcSHARE efficiently runs compiled Basic. Pascal & C pro-
grams with full DOS 3.0 compatible record locking
Digitrol Computers Inc.
440 Phillip Street
Waterloo. Ontario, CAN, N2L 5R9
(519) 884-4541
Inquiry 729
LISP for CP/M Z-80
Complete LISP system list editor source code
library, pretty printer, floating pt math, random ac-
cess disk i/o. ELIZA 200+ page manual Hundreds
in use m schools, labs, homes Most CP/M disk for-
mats $54.95 includes USA postage/overseas add
$15.
Computing Insights
P.O Box 4033
Madison, Wl 53711
PC Array Processing!!!
VECTOR87 has 57 array processor subroutines.
FFT (fastest in the world 9 ) convolution, dot product,
complex vector operations, random number gen.
etc Up to 18x faster than compiled code For Pro
Fori. IBM/MS Fort/Pascal. Lat C
All 3 obj libs $99 US
Vectorplex Data Systems Ltd.
Box 138 Station M. Calgary. Alberta T2P 2H6. Canada
(403) 248-1250
DISK DRIVE DIAGNOSTIC
Memory Minder, from J & M Systems, is a disk
diagnostic program for the IBM PC, PCjr. & IBM com-
patibles It checks your drives for head alignment, spin-
dle speed, hysteresis, azimuth & more And, you can use
Memory Minder to actually align your disk drives' $99
plus $4 shipping
J & M Systems, Ltd.
1510O-A Central SE, Albuquerque, NM 87123
(505) 292-4182
Inquify 791
Inquiry 754
DEVELOP Z-8 APPLICATIONS
Fast Lowest Cost Rqute to build robot controllers and
industrial automation Z-8 assembler and reliable cassette
storage system gives you the power of Z 8671 BASIC
and the speed of assembled machine code
Z-8613, piggyback PROM, instructions $162
Recorder 70
Assembler 165
System Boards Available
Hasco Technology
9960 Canoga Ave D3, Chatsworth. CA 91311
818-709-6268
Inquiry 743
438 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
PC Matrix Calculator
Matrix power, calculator ease Interactive & Pro-
grammable + , -. ■, invert, solve =s, eigen. var-
covar. more AND interactive OLS regression ASCII,
other I/O EASY Just type names & operators, it
reads files, chks syntax, forms result opt 8087 $35.
S'Ryt Code Works
2353 Massachusetts Ave. Suite 66
Cambridge, MA 02140
617-497-2390
Symbolic Debugger for Turbo Pascal -
- Set breakpoints at line numbers or procedures
• Display and modify variables symbolically
- Fully integrated into Turbo Pascal environment
Requires Turbo 2.0 or 3.0, IBM PC version
Only $49 plus $2 S&H.
KYDOR COMPUTER SYSTEMS
812 S. Sherman St., Richardson, Texas 75081
(214) 669-1888
Inquiry 757
The Buyer's Mart-
SOFTWARE/SYSTEM
SOFTWARE/SYSTEM
UTILITIES
MCFORMAT $50
Don! let DOS waste your disk space' Add up to 50% more
hard disk capacity to your IBM PC. XT, AT or 100% com-
patible by selecting format parameters, including cluster
& directory size Fully DOS compatible (3.0 or 3,1),
V1SA/MC
Microcomputer Concepts, Inc.
9715 SE 43 St , Mercer Island, WA 98040
(800) 722-8088 (206) 236-2300
Don't Re-Key - Use PIK'r!
" * The magic micro-mainframe data editor ' "
Selectively reformat mainframe ASCII report data into
spreadsheets, databases. Lotus, dBASE, Multiplan.
Visicalc, word processors Cut & Paste, edit, merge,
transpose. $95.
SAMKHYA Corp.
47 Sixth St., Suite 3000. POB 142
Petaluma, CA 94953
(800) 442-0012 US, (800) 442-5544 CA
THE C UTILITY LIBRARY
Make C program development easy on PC & AT
300 documented, lested functions pop-up windows,
fast graphics, data-entry, time/date math, much
more SOURCE {95% in C) included. NO
ROYALTIES. Most compilers, memory models
$185.
Essential Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 1003, Maplewood, N.J. 07040
(914) 762-6605
Inquiry 768
Inquiry 785
Inquiry 736
LASER TYPOGRAPHY $495.
Typographic composition software to drive the Cor-
ona L300 Laser Printer as a typesetter H & J 24 pro-
portional space fonts, widths for 78 fonts available
Mix face & point size on any line, multicolumn
capability
Micro Print-X, Inc.
P.O. Box 581. Ballinger, TX 76821
(915) 365-2343 Dealer Inquiries Welcome
Inquiry 769
DEMOGRAPHIC DATA BASE
County and city database supplied on 32 IBM PC
compatible diskettes. Agriculture, Banking, Crime,
Education, Elections, Government, Health,
Households, Labor force, Land. Income, Population,
Poverty, Services, Weather, and more. $290.00
Melissa Data Co.
12 Balboa Coves, Newport Beach. CA 92663
(714) 650-1000
DOS PATHING EXTENSION
Give your software the full PA THING capabilities that
are missing from the 2.xx and 3.xx versions of MS-
DOS and PC-DOS. FULL PATH object license.
$19.95, source license; $399.95, (+$5S&H + 6%
in MN). VISA/MC/PO/CHK 30 day money back
guarantee.
P. R. GLASSEL and ASSOCIATES, INC.
30255 Fir Trail, Stacy, MN 55079
812-462-1337
Inquiry J
UTILITIES
CP/M 2.2 on VAX/VMS
Z80 instruction set emulator runs CP/M"" 2.2 on
VAX/VMS' Supports 64K bytes RAM & 64M bytes
disk. Exchange utility transfers files between CP/M
and VMS May access SSSD CP/M diskettes directly
via console floppy $495 inc CP/M.
William's Lake Systems
6 Saraguay Place
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
B3P 2N9
MEDIA MASTER PLUS
READ, WRITE, and FORMAT over 60 CP/M disks and
run most CP/M-80 programs on your IBM PC Two pro-
gram package includes ZP/EM, a CP/M-80 emulator pro-
gram thai transforms your IBM PC into a 1 -2 MHZ CP/M
2 2 computer $59.95 + $3.00 S/H (CA 6%)
Intersecting Concepts, Inc.
4573 Heatherglen Ct Ste 10
Moorpark, CA 93021
(805) 529-5073
TOPVIEW SPOOLER
TVSPOOL is a user-friendly printer spooler for the
TopView environment providing: Disk Resident
Queue, Page buffer. Banner Processor, Delete After
Multiple Copies, and more Introductory Price is
$60.00 (Visa/MC)
(714) 261-0440
RIX Softworks, Inc.
17971-F Skypark Circle, Irvine, CA 92714
HP LASERJET TYPESETTING
with most popular word processors
QROFF $79.95
from
QCAD SYSTEMS, INC.
1164 Hyde Ave., San Jose, CA 95129
Toll-free 800-538-9797
In California, call 408-727-6671
Leaders in software tools
COPYWRITE
CopyWrite backs up hundreds of the most popular pro-
grams for the IBM PC CopyWrite is revised monthly to
keep up with the latest in copy protection, and comes
with a trade-in offer It needs an IBM AT, XT, or PC, 128K
and one disk drive, but can use more memory or another
drive $50 US Check/Credit Cards.
QUAID SOFTWARE LIMITED
45 Charles St. E. 3rd Fl.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4Y 1S2
(416) 961-8243
PACKED
HOT
STUFF
UTILITY DISK
FOR
IBM-PC
$10
EXPECT A MIRACLE!
MICRO TOOLS INC.
POB 357 N. Chili, NY 14514 (716)594-1088
Circle the Inquiry 0771 . . . We'll do the Rest
Inquiry 781
inquiry 771
Subscription Problems?
We want to help!
// you have a problem with your BYTE subscription, write us with the details. We'll do
our best to set it right. But we must have the name, address, and zip of the subscription
(new and old address, if it's a change of address). If the problem involves a payment, be
sure to include copies of the credit card statement, or front and back of cancelled
checks. Include a "business hours" phone number if possible.
BYTE
Subscriber Service
P.O. Box 328
Hancock, NH 03449
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 439
Inquiry 91
CCT-4
SYSTEM
SERIES
The latest CCT implementation of the new
generation Intel 16-Bit Processor technology.
This means extreme speed, unequaled power,
and the ultimate in reliability, and of course, the
innovators at CCT behind it.
This series in the CCT line exploits the speed and power of the Intel 80286 and Zilog Z-80H (8MHz), on the 286Z CPU
board. This combination , along with CompuPro DMA controllers and I/O boards, yields a dramatic improvement in system
throughput speeds, from basic CP/M operation, up to large powerful multi-user/multi-tasking machines. The CCT-4
represents the most advanced hardware presently available in a microcomputer to run the thousands of CP/M type
software programs on the market, and with CONCURRENT DOS 8-16 and the CompuPro PC Graphics board (when
available), all software written for the IBM PC machines. This series is for the serious business/scientific user.
CCT-4A
State-of-the-art power in it's basic form. Consists of CCT-286Z CPU board and CCT-M256 (256K). along with Com-
puPro: Enclosure 2 Desk (21 slot MF). Disk 1A. System Support 1. Interfacer 4. the CCT-2.4 floppy drive system, and
CP/M 8-16, and with SF-200 surge suppressor system $5,269.00
Single-user/hard disk power As the 4A, except priced without the CCT-2.4. to add in your choice of CCT hard/floppy
combination drive subsystem, at the published pricing. . . $4,149.00
(Example: CCT-4B Mainframe with CCT-10/1 = $6. 198.00) plus cosl of selected drlve subsystem
CCT-4C o Multi-user/hard disk power. As the 4B. with the CCT-M512 (512K static RAM board) instead of M256; Interfacer 3 in-
V JO* stead of Interfacer 4: SF-400 instead of SF-200. plus Concur. DOS 8-16 O.S. (4 to 6 user system) . . . $4,999.00
S^lt\ (Example: CCT-4C Mainframe with CCT-40/ 1 = S8.048.00) Plus cost of selec,ed drlve subsystem
Limited Time Offer - FREE 80287 and Supercalc 86 with any CCT-4! P t
The above systems include all necessary cabling, assembly, testing, minimum 20 hour burn-in.
CCT-4B
*$&
<m
>4fe
c o.
v ^ and the CCT unconditional 12 month direct warranty
CCT-M512 WORLDS TOP SELLING CCT STATIC RAM. IEEE Standard 12MHz 512K in one slot! — Special Price: $799
CCT-M256 256K version of M512 upgradeable to full 512K. Perfect 256K RAM board for any CompuPro system $439
CUSTOM COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY / BOX 4160 / SED0NA, ARIZONA 86340
TOLL FREE ORDERING: 800-222-8686 / For technical support / service: 602-282-6299
*/
Compu$ave
Call Toll Free: 1-800-624-8949
IN ARIZONA CALL (602) 967-3532
COMPUTERS
Altos 586-40 Multiuser System
5199
IBM-PC <2 FDnves/IOM HDnve
2390
Wyse-PC/2 Floppy Drives
1159
Wyse-XT/1 FDnve/iOM HOnve
1879
Zenith 148 PC/1 Floppy Drive
1060
Zenith 158 PC/2 Floppy Drives
1749
Zenith 171 PC Port/2 FDrives
1879
Compaq/Corona/Eagle/ Moiecuia
CALL
NEC/Sharp/Sperry/Televideo
CALL
FOR XMAS GIVE AN EPSON POCKET
SIZE COLOR TV ONLY S225
MODEMS
Anchor Volksmodem (Ex)
55
Anchor Signalman Express {Ex)
235
Hayes Smartmodem 300 (Ex)
128
Hayes Smartmodem 1200 (Ex)
359
Hayes Smartmodem 1 200B I int)
309
Micromooem ME/Sott (Int)
128
Novation Apple Cat II (Int)
192
Novation Hall-Card 2400 (Int)
439
Prometheus Promodem 1200 (Ex)
299
Racai-Vadic 1200V W/Sott (Ex)
209
US Robotics Password 1200 (Ex)
194
Ven-Tel PC Modem Hall-Card (Int)
385
AT&T/AST/Oubie/UDS/Sottware
CALL
PRINTERS
AOati L0 299
Epson FX85
345
Citizen MSP10 248
Epson LX80
219
Citizen MSP15 345
Juki 6100
345
C Itoh F10-55 949
Juki 6300
665
0kidalaML182 215
NEC ELF
385
0kidaiaMH92 358
NEC P5
965
Panasonic1091 234
Slar SG10
209
Panasonic1092 348
Star SD10
339
Televideo 750 855
Cables 5
17
Tosriica P341 B99
Cables 10
19
Brother /DiaDio/Qume/Sharp
CALL
Houston And Other Plotters
CALL
Butters/Sheet Feeders/Tractors
CALL
Slands/Switches/RiPDons 20*
OFF
TERMINALS
Adds Viewpt+ 419
Qume 101G
285
Ampex 210 365
Qume 119G
439
Ampex 219 CALL
Qume 20 1G
519
Ampex 230 449
Qume 202G
589
Televideo 914 539
Televideo 922 598
Qume 21 1G
Visual 65
489
Televideo 955 449
Wyse 30
278
Zenith Z-22 488
Zenith Z 29 608
Wyse 50
Wyse 75
418
558
Zemin Z-49 859
Wyse 85
578
Alios/ IBM/Liberty/LSI/Samsung
CALL]
BOARDS
AST Advantage W/ 128
379
AST Six Pack Plus W/64K
215
Hercules Color Card
143
Hercules Monochrome Graphics
289
Micro Sci 80/64E (Apple)
Orange Buttered Grappler + (Ap)
75
139
Orange Grappler + (Apple)
70
Orchid Cram RAM/OK
Orchid PCIurbo 186/256K
265
635
Paradise Modular Graphics
258
Paradise Multi-Display
192
Persysl Short Pon Color Card
159
Persyst Time-Spectrum/OK
189
Premier Color Pack Card
115
QuadramQuadboard/384K
Quadram Silver Ouadboard/OK
225
219
STB Chautteur
249
STB Graphics Plus II
Tecmar Graphics Master
249
443
Tecmar Maeslro AT
379
ABM/Logicom/Microtek/PGS
CALL
Practical Penpherals/Thesys
CALL
DISK DRIVES
Gamma/Apple HE. IIC
135
Micro Sci A2/Apple II. II + . HE
159
Mitsubishi 4851 /IBM
99
Seagate 10M Subsystem/IBM
439
Seagate 20M Subsystem/IBM
539
Tandom TM 100-2/IBM
99
Alloy /Corvus/Maynard/Teac
CALL
MONITORS
Amdek 300
116
BUI 1411
339
Amdek 310A
139
Taxan 116
115
Amdek 500
245
Taxan 121
124
Amdek 722
489
Taxan 620
369
PGS HX9
415
Taxan 640
469
PGS HX12
432
Wyse 500
169
PGS MAX 12
159
Wyse 600
519
PGS SR12
579
Zenith 122
82
Samsung 1451 205
Zenith 123
79
Thomson31021G 139
Zenith 1240
169
NEC/Panasonic/ Roland/Tatung
CALL
Cables/Stands/ Interfaces
CALL
COMPARE OUR PRICES FOR
MERCHANDISE DELIVERED TO YOUR
000R YOU WILL SEE WHY WE HAVE
THE REPUTATION FOR 0UALITY
PRODUCTS AT LOW-LOW PRICES
WE ALSO CARRY
(Maxell Disks MD-1 (Bx) 18|
[Maxell Disks MD-2(Bx) A
•verbatim Disks/SS-DD(Bx) isl
lverbatim Disks/DS/DD (Bx) A
Iverbatim-Bonus Disks/SS-00 (Bx) 12I
|verbatim-Bonus Disks/DS-DD (Bx) 17|
SOFTWARE
■Apple / Atari / IBM / Commodore
lDigilizers / Joysticks / Power Supplies
■Chips / Keyboards / Surge Protectors
Icables / Graphics Tablets / Light Pens
HOURS: MON - FRI 8AM 6PM/SAT 9AM - 2PM
CompuSave 3010 S 48th St Suite 8 Phoenix, AZ 85040 (602) 967-3533
Purchase Orders and All Ma|Ot Credit Cards Welcome
Prices Reflect Cash Discounts Minimum Shipping Charge S4
A Division ot Adlanko Corporation
440 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 70
TOLL-FREE
ORDERING:
800-222-8686
CCT
CUSTOM COMPUTER
TECHNOLOGY Jk
FOR TECHNICAL SUPPORT/ 1 CCT PLAZA — P.O. BOX 4160 — SEDON A, ARIZONA 86340
SERVICE / IN ARIZONA:
602-282-6299
Purchase your Hardware and Software directly from an OEM / Systems Integrator Take advantage ot our buying power! We stock
a full line of Board Level Components. Software and Peripherals. Call for your needs. Well give you the Lowest Prices, and the Technical
Support and Know-How we are quickly becoming well-known for. Satisfied Customers Nationwide. The Nation's Custom Systems
House for Business, Education and Science. Call for a system quote. CCT implements tomorrow's technology today!'"' 1
FOREMOST QUALITY • ADVANCED SUPPORT • REASONABLE COST •
CCT
(ompuPro
80286 NOW!
CCT-286Z is our model designation
for the MI-286 dual processor board
from Macrotech.lt features the super
high speed combination of Z-80H and
80286, with provision for the 80287
math chip. Directly replaces 8085/88
and 8086 CPUs running CP/M, MP/M
Concurrent DOS, and MS-DOS, at
throughput increases of 3X to 5X!
SPECIAL PRICE $795
80287 Option - Installed - $250
SEE THE CCT-4 SERIES
USING THIS BOARD
DETAILED ON THE FACING PAGE
NOW!
BATTERY BACK-UP
ON
CCT RAM BOARDS!
VOLATILE PRICES
CALL FOR QUOTE
LIBERTY TERMINALS
• Superior Reliability •
110-14" GREEN-6G7132 Column CLOSE
110-14" AMBER OUT
200-14" GREEN-80/132 Super Deluxe PRICES
200-14" AMBER CALL!!
OKIDATA PRINTERS - Top Quality
82 -80 Col CALL 83 -132 Col CALL
92 - 80 Col CALL 93- 132 Col CALL
84 - 132 Col/200cps— Top ol the Line CALL
For Serial Interfaces CALL
TOSHIBA P351 - 288 CPS/24 PIN - $1499
DIABLO — Letter Quality Series
Model 620 $969 Model 630 $1799
WE HAVE ALL SOFTWARE-CALL
$ ACROSS THE BOARD PRICE REDUCTIONS $
INDUSTRIAL GRADE
SUPERIOR QUAUTY
CCT DISK DRIVE SYSTEMS
S-100 HARD DISK SUBSYSTEMS
ROLLS ROYCES OF
THE INDUSTRY
Professionally engineered ST-506 type systems forthe business market S-100 Computer user. Includes
industry top quality drives, CompuPro Disk 3 DMA controller, all cabling, A&T, formatted, burned-in. Pro-
visions for up to two hard disks in each system. We include operating system update. CP/M 80, CP/M
86, CP/M 8-16, CCP/M 8-16, CP/M 68K. (/1 Systems are CCT innovated hard/floppy combinations, with
Mitsubishi DSDD 8" drive.) 12 month warranty.
CCT-10(11 + MEG) $1499
CCT-20(22+ MEG) $2019
CCT-40 (36 + MEG) $2499
CCT-60(58 + MEG) $3699
CCT-90 (87 + MEG) $4909
CCT-125(123 + MEG) $6099
CCT-10/1 $2049
CCT-20/1 $2569
CCT-40/1 $3049
CCT-60/1 $4249
CCT-90/1 $5459
CCT-125/1 $6649
HOT NEW PRINTERFACER 1 ™ - Print buffer I/O Board. Up to 1 Meg. RAM onboard. Looks as/works with
CCT lnterfacer3/4. Single or Muttiuser/lnterrupt driven or polled. Super-slick design handles one serial, oneparallel,
BOARD software switchable. Also for Zenith and Alpha. Intro Price — $349.
CCT-2.4.Dual8"DSDD FL0PPY SYSTEMS CCT-5-S14" DSDD
Mitusbishi 2.4 Megabyte in Extra Heavy horizontal enclosure. IBM Compatible Mitsubishi 360K. Extra Heavy Cabinet
removeable filter air system, all cabling, A&T, Burned in. The accommodates two drives, hard or floppy. All cabling, A&T,
fastest system available: $1229 Burned-in. Perfect for our Concurrent DOS Package $399
CCT-8/5 • FULL IBM COMPATIBILITY
One Mitsubishi 8" DSDD (1 .2 Meg)/One S~Y*" DSDD (360K) IBM Drive
For Concurrent DOS and PC DOS $1029
• SUPER PRICES • COMPUPRO COMPONENTS* IN STOCK •
CPU-Z-S229 • Disk 1A - $399 • Disk 1A w/CP/M - $499 • CPU 8086/10 - $359 • SPU-Z-?
CPU 8085/88 - $229 • CPU 286 $849 • CPU 68K - 10Mhz - $359
Disk 3 $459 • RAM22(256K)-? • RAM23/64K-$229/128K-$299
SUPER SALE - M-Drive/H - 512k - $399 / 2 Meg - $899
Enclosure 2 Desk - $699/Rack - $749 • Interfacer 3 - $409 • Interfaced -$289 • System Support 1 - $299
Concurrent DOS 8-16 (CCTCMX)- $309 • CP/M 80 (CCTHMX) - $125 • CP/M86(CCTTMX)-$175
CP/M 8-16 (CCTTMX) - $199 • CP/M 68k (CCTCX)- $279 • Operating System Updates/ Remakes $30
16 Bit Upgrade Kit: CP/M 86, RAM 23, System Support 1, Cable $649 l CP/M 8-16 - Kit - $673
CCT-1 - ENTRY LEVEL S-100 BUSINESS SYSTEM
• Enclosure 2-Desk-21 Slot Mainframe • • CCT-2.4-Dual 8" Mitsubishi
• CPU-Z - 6 Mhz Z-80 CPU Board • DSDD Drive System - 2.4 Megabytes •
• Disk 1A - DMA Floppy Disk Controller • • CP/M 80-2.2 HMX - CCT Modified •
• RAM 23 - 64K Static RAM - 12Mhz • . A || Cabling, Complete CCT Assembly.
• Interfacer 4 - 3 Serial/2 Parallel I/O • Testing, and Minimum 20 Hour Bum-in •
RUNS ALL STANDARD 8" CP/M SOFTWARE - INCLUDES OUR EXCLUSIVE 12 MONTH DIRECT WARRANTY
SPECIAL PRICE
$3,150
Prices & availability subject to change. All products new, and carry full manufacturer's warranties. Call for catalog. Free technical help to anyone. All products we sell are CCT individually tested
and set up for your system - Plug-In & Go! Arizona residents add sales tax CCT £ Trademark — Custom Computer Technology; MS-DOS S Trademark - Microsoft" IBM Trademark -
International Business Machines; CompuPro s Trademark - W.J. Godbout; CP/M s MP/M© Trademarks - Digital Research HERCULES™ Trademark - Hercules Computer Technology
Inquiry 92
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 441
Inquiry 342
3UNTR0N1CS CO..INC.
1 2603 Crenshaw Blvd., Hawthorne, CA 90250
1-800-421-5775 (Order Only)
(213l 644 1 140 (CA Order & Into 1
STORE HOURS
Won -Fn 9am to 6 p m
Sat 10 a m to 5 p m
TERMS VISA MASTFACAHO COO iCas^ 0' CerMied
Oeck flequirerJi Check (Allow 2 3 Week; 'or Oeafingi
Shipping 4 H C S3 00 'or 3 Lbs plus 50c 'or earn add Lb
Caii' residents add Can' Saies Ta* S'O 00 Minimum Order
IBM and Appre are registered trade marks o* IBM S Apple
SUN-XT
SUN-XT COMPUTER
(IBM PC/XT COMPATIBLE)
a RAM EXPANDABLE
TO 640 K
a USES MS & PC-DOS
OPERATING
SYSTEMS
1 RUN LOTUS 1-2-3
FLIGHT SIMULATOR
SYMPHONY DBASE
II S III AUTO CAT,
WORD STAR, MULTI
PLAN . . . ETC.
(DOES NOT RUN PROG
REQUIRE ROM BASIC)
D CPU BOARD W/256 K RAM
D COMPUTER CABINET
O FULL FUNCTION KEYBOARD
a 135 W/POWER SUPPLY
D 2 DSDD DISK DRIVES
D FDC W /CABLE
D TTL MONITOR (AMBER OR GREEN)
D MONOCHROME GRAPHICS CARD
W/PARALLEL PRINTER PORT.
D FULLY AST
(MEETS FCC CLASS "A" REG., FOR IND.
& BUS USE)
ONLY
$895.00
DEALER SOEM INQUIRES INVITED!!
SUN-XT CPU
D 8088 CPU (8087 OPTION]
C RAM EXPANDABLE TO 840K
D FULLY IBM COMPATIBLE
D DIMENSION SAME AS IBM PC/XT
n NO RAM INCLUDED
D 8 EXPANSION SLOTS
S175.00
FLOPPY DISK
CONTROLLER
D STANDARD DOUBLE SIDE
DOUBLE DENSITY
a RUN 2 INTERNAL S
2 EXTERNAL «._---
a WITH CABLE 9l39.UU
IBM STYLE CABINET
a 8 SLOT BACK PANEL
G COMES WITH MOUNTING
BRACKET G HARDWARE
O FITS IBM POWER SUPPLY
$59.00
COLOR GRAPHIC CARD
D RGB G COMPOSITE VIDEO
n 840 x 200 HIGH-RES
a 320 « 200 LO-REB
G 80 ■ 25TEXTMODE
D LIGHT PEN INTERFACE
$99.00
HIGH RESOLUTION
MONOCHROME MONITOR
a 12" AMBER OR GREEN
D 1000 LINES AT CENTER
G 20MHZ BAND WIDTH
D SEPARATE TTL BIGNAL INPUT
D DUAL INTENSITY BIGNAL LEVEL
Q HIGH PERFORMANCE SHARP
IMA0ES $105.00
MONOCHROME
GRAPHIC CARD
G HIGH-RES CHARACTER
G 720(H) . 34B(V)
80 > 25 TEXT MODE
G RUN LOTUS 1-2-3 ETC.
G WITH PARALLEL PRINTER PORT
$120.00
MULTI-FUNCTION
BOARD
a RAM EXPANDABLE TO 384(0 K]
□ SERIAL/PARALLEL PORT
G CLOCK CALENDAR W/BATTERY
BACKUP
GAME PORT
□ SPOOL G RAM DISK
$129.00
MULTI-I/O BOARD
D FLOPPY DISK DRIVE CONTROLLER
□ PARALLEL PRINTER PORT
G SERIAL I/O PORT (OPTION DUAL)
C CLOCK CALENDAR W/BATTERY
BACKUP
G GAMEPORT
$149.00
RGB COLOR MONITOR
G 14" DISPLAY DB-S CONNECTOR
G 840 « 240 HIGH-RES
G 2500 CHARACTERS (80 x 32)
a RGB TTL LEVEL, INTENSITY
SIGNAL
G 39 mm DOT PITCH
G H-SCANNING 14.5K-17.BKHZ
$365.00
FULL FUNCTION
KEYBOARD
D 83 KEY FULL FUNCTION
POWER, CAPS, NUM LIGHT
INDICATOR
MECHANICAL TYPE SWITCH
G WITH CABLE «. — «. — —
$79.00
135W POWER SUPPLY
$89.00
150W POWER SUPPLY
S109.00
6 OUTLET SURGE SUPPRESSOR
[MIDLAND ROSS IND.] $14.50
10MB HARD DISK a CONI
$495.00
20MB HARD DISK w/CONT
$595.00
ASYNC RS232
$59.00
PARALLEL PRINTER CARD
$39.00
TEAC 55B DISK DRIVE
$89.00
HARD DISK DRIVE CONTROLLER
(10MB OR 20MB) $159.00
64K RAM KIT (9 EA)
S850/KIT
25EK RAM KIT (9 EA)
S35.00/KIT
APPARAT EPROM BLASTER
(FOR IBM) $123.00
CITIZEN MSP-10 PRINTER
$299.00
TOSHIBA 1340 PRINTER
$599.00
DSDD 5V« DISKETTE
$12.95/per 10 ea
PARALLEL PRINTER CABLE
$15.00
-BYTE CONNECTION INC.
LDCTTCM LINE PRICE .DUSTERS! — "Who ycu senna call?**
(714) 778-6496
PERSONAL COMPUTERS:
UBM *1 (IBM Compatible), 384K, two 360 floppies, hires graphics card, BROTHER DM40 DH45 S 950 S
™nitorandK.B $ " 5 CITIZEN MSP1 5 -25. . . ^\\\V^Y.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. $ 439-$
UBM • II, all the above, w/1 0MB HP $1495 COMREXCRIII $
AT S T 6300, 256K. two 360 floppies. AT & T graphics card. DATA PRODUCT 8070 - 8072 L< $1 750 - $
monitor and KB $2222 DATA PRODUCT LINE PRINTERS I
all the above, w/360 floppy and 20MB HD drive $2828 DIABLO P32 - 34LQ $ 685-$
AT&T 7300 CALL DIABLO AP1 - P38 $1595$
EPSON85 185 $ 399 - $
COMPAQ PORTABLE, 640K, 360 floppy 10MB HD $2595 HP LAZERJET $
COMPAQ DESK PRO. 640K. two 360 floppies hi-res graphics card. KB $2020 HP LAZERJET PLUS $
all the above w/360 floppy, 10MB HO. 10MB tape b/u $3131 NEC3550-8850 $1050-$
with 30MB $3636 OKIDATA 192 - 1 93 $ 389-$
COMPAQ PORTABLE MODEL 286, 512K. two 12 MB floppies $3838 OKIDATA 84 ■ 2410 $ 665-$
above with one 1.2 floppy. 20MB HD ?. $4444 Ef^MsAtaJo* 3 *t
COMPAQ DESK PRO MODEL 286, 640K. two 1 2 floppies hires Zn%u iba dw «
graphics card, monitor and KB.. S .P. C/C $3838 iuomo« rjo »
above with one 1.2 MB floppy, 20MB HD, 10MB tape b/u $4994. PLOTTERS *, DIGITIZERS.
above W/30MB HD $5353 CALCOMP 1 043 I
above W/70MB HD and 60MB tape b/u $6969 * HP 7475 S
IBM PC, 256K, two 360 floppies, hi-res graphics card, monitor ui _„„ ., .„ I
P. S.. C/C, KB $2099 H1DMP51/52 I
above w/360 floppy. 10MB HD 10MB tape b/u $3131 H1 DMP 51MP-52MP $
IBM PC XT. 640K, 360 floppy 20MB HD, 10MB tape b/u $3663 NICOLET DPX ........... ...V:... ............. . "
IBM PC AT, 512K. 1.2 MB floppy. 20MB HD, S.. P. C/C. hl-res graphics card, ROLAND DPX $
monitor, KB $4444 Tl
IBM PC AT, above with 70MB HD, 60MB tape b/u $6969 10LINE '. $
We carry all name brand MFC, modems, monitors, monitor adapters and software. Call for what is not listed.
WE GUARANTEE THAT YOUR CALL WILL NOT BE A WASTE. No charge for testing and configuring systems. Prices and
availability subject to change without notice.
163 West Cerritcs Ave., Anaheim, CA 928C5
^(714) 778-C496
PRINTERS:
AN ADEX 9620 - 9752
$1129
$1350
BROTHER DM40 - DH45
$
950
$1050
CITIZEN MSP1 5-25
$
439
$ 619
COMREX CR III
$ 395
DATA PRODUCT 8070 - 8072
..... $17!
$1850
DATA PRODUCT LINE PRINTERS
. CALL
DIABLO P32 - 34LO
$
685
$1250
DIABLO AP1 - P38
$1595
$1550
EPSON 85 -1 85
$
399
$ 499
HP LAZERJET
$2600
HP LAZERJET PLUS
$3550
NEC 3550 - 8850
$1050
$1350
OKIDATA 1 92 - 1 93
$
389
$ 495
OKIDATA 84 - 241
$ 665
S1825
PANASONIC 1 093
$ 499
TOSHIBA 1 340
$550
TOSHIBA P351
$1159
PLOTTERS* DIGITIZERS.
CALCOMP 1 043
. CALL
HP7475
$1659
HITACHI DIGITIZERS _>
. CALL
H1 DMP 41 -42 *.X
$2495
H1 DMP51/52
$3595
H1 DMP51MP-52MP
$4995
NICOLET DPX
. CALL
ROLAND DPX
$3850
. CALL
10LINE
$4095
442
YTE • DECEMBER I985
Inquiry 46
D & D CHRISTMAS SPECIALS
ENSURES A HAPPY NEW YEAR
SPECIAL #\
CORONA
PORTABLE
• 512K • 2 Drives
Monitor • Keyboard • DOS
$1195
All Sales Are Warranteed for 90 Days, Parts & Labor
WE SERVICE WHAT WE SELL!
MAIL ORDER AND SAVE
ORDER TOLL FREE (800) 621-0849 ext. 446
SPECIAL #2
IBM PC 256K
• Two 360K Drives
ONLY
$1529
SYSTEMS
IBM
PC 256K, 1 Drive $1495
PC 256K, 2 Drives 1529
XT 256K, 1 Drive 1879
XT 256K, 1 Drive 1-10 MG 2195
COMPAQ
Portable. 2 Drives. 256K . .$1875
Call on Desk Pro's
CORONA
Portable $1195
Desk Top, 2 Drives. 512K
w/monitor 1399
MODEMS
HAYES
Micromodem HE $ 149
300 149
1200 389
1200B IBM Internal 359
2400 External 639
PROMETHEUS
Promodem 1200 $ 279
Promodem 1200A 289
Promodem 1200B 269
Promodem 1200MAC .... Call
ANCHOR
Mark 12 $ 199
Express 255
PRINTERS
EPSON
Call for Best Pricing
OKIDATA
182. 120 cps $218
183, 120 cps 418
192, 160 cps, IBM 348
193, 160 cps, IBM 498
84, 200 cps. IBM 658
OKI-MATE 20, Color 118
TOSHIBA
P1351 Call
P1340 $ 519
P351 1029
STARMICRONICS
SG10/15 $219/389
SD10/15 355/469
SR10/15 Call
CITIZEN
MSP-10 $ 249
MSP-15 369
MSP-20 399
MSP-25 539
DISKETTES
Call for quantity discounts
PRECISION COPY
SS 100 (Box of 10) $ 17
DS 100 (Box of 10 19
DYSAN
SS 100 (Box of 10 $ 30
DS 100 (Box of 10) 34
POLAROID DS/DD
Bulk Disks as low as . . . . 69C ea.
IBM EXTRAS
We carry almost everything
PC, AT or XT
Name Brands or Generic
AST RESEARCH
PC Net II $
for
519
SixPak + . 64K w/Side Kick 209
Reach wCrosstalk 329
Preview Mono Card 239
Advantage wl28K 399
D & D MEMORY CARD
MF-100 + . 64K same as
SixPak + $ 119
HERCULES
Color Card w/Printer Port .$ 149
Mono Graphics Card 305
GOODIES
IBM Printer Cable $ 15
64K Ram Set of Nine Chips 8
256K Ram Set of Nine Chips 29
Power Supply 135 Watts . . 79
8087 Coprocessor Call for Best Price
DOS 2.1 55
DOS 3.1
64
MONITORS
PRINCETON GRAPHICS
Max 12E $ 159
HX-9 Call
HX-12
4W
SR-12
569
Doubler Card
THOMSON
Color Monitor $
Monochrome Monitor
AMDEK
310A $
179
329
169
148
600
419
722
525
DRIVES
IBM COMPATIBLE
Teac 55B $ 80
Mitsubishi 4851 84
Tandon TM 100-2 84
Seimans DT542 84
Panasonic JU455 84
In quantities of 2 or more
TEAC
55B, 320K $ 84
55GF. 1.2MG for AT 179
WELTEC
AT Compatible 360K $ 109
IRWIN
10 MG Tape Backup $ 479
100% APPLE
COMPATIBLE 5»/4"
525A for He and II + $ 109
525C for He 119
APPLE
EXTRAS
ALS
Z-Engine 2.2 $ 115
CPM 3.0 Card 279
256K Add Ram 149
ORANGE MICRO
Grappler+ $ 78
Grappler+ Buffered w/16K 145
MICRO SCI
80 Column Card 64K . . .
$ 79
WE OFFER VOLUME DISCOUNTS! MAKE THAT CALL (800) 621-0849 ext. 446
SPECIAL #3
IBM PC
• Two 1/2 Ht 360K Drives
256K • 10 MG Hard Disk Drive
• 120 Day Warranty
$1989
SPECIAL #4
MULTIFUNC. CARD FOR IBM
• Serial and Parallel Ports
• Clock/Gameport • Ram disk/
Printer spool. Software • 1 yr. War.
w/384K only $159
SPECIAL #5
INTERNAL HARD DISK
FOR IBM
• Seagate w/IBM Controller
10 Meg 20 Meg
$469 $569
SPECIAL #6
IBM PC/XT COMPATIBLE
• Two 360K 1/2 Ht Drives
• 256K • 8 Slots • 135 Watts
• 120 Day Warranty
$569
<fc
Di/count
Computer/
SELLING TO YOU SINCE 1978
MAIL ORDER:
13324 HAWTHORNE BLVD.. SUITE 201
HAWTHORNE, CA 90250
ORDER DESK:
Inside California (213) 970-0206
Outside California (8O0) 62 1-0849 x446
Hours: Monday— Friday 8 am to 6 pm
Open Saturdays
WE CARRY TOO MANY ITEMS TO LIST,
PLEASE CALL FOR A QUOTE ON ANY ITEM.
No Surcharge for Credit Cards
Terms:AII merchandise new. We accept MC. Visa. Wire
Transfer. COD (call), Certified Check. PC's from
qualified firms Shipping: minimum 4.00 first 5 pounds Tax:
California residents only add 6V2% sales tax. All returns
subject to 15% restock fee. Prices Subject to Change.
Inquiry 98
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 443
- nn». o;om Mm - •»•
PORTABLE MEMORY
EXPANSIONS
8K MEMORY MODULES $29
For Model 100. NEC PC-8201A
& Olivetti M10
24K MEMORY MODULES $99
For Tandy 200
128K SIDESTAR $399
A Ram Disk Cartridge lor the NEC Starlet
128K SIDECAR $259
Flam Cartridge tor the NEC PC 8201 A
TTXpress 1280 $99
Portable Thermal Printer— 2.2 lbs., bat oper
FREE SHIPPING IN USA
(800) 732-5012 (805) 987-4788 (in Calif.)
VISA MIC &
AMER EXP.
420 Constitution Ave.. Camanllo. CA 93010
MPURPLE
film COMPUTING
m LIONHEART
BUSINESS & STATISTICAL SOFTWARE
PC/MS-DOS, AMIGA, MACINTOSH
ATARI 520ST, CP/M, COMMODORE 128
Explanatory books with professional compiled software: the
new standard for statistical use. The influential Seybotd Report
on Professional Computing has this to say about Uonheart
labc approach
d that the com-
_ ...iportant thing is
ate a problem correctly and to dele
Let Lionheart help
Inquiry 300
BUSINESS STATISTICS $145
i EXPERIMENTAL STATISTICS 145
MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS 150
QUALITY CONTROL & INDUSTRIAL
EXPERIMENTS 125
< FORECASTING AND TIME-SERIES 145
SALES AND MARKET FORECASTING 145
i DECISION ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES 110
i LINEAR & NON-LINEAR PROGRAMMING ... t
■ PERT & CRITICAL PATH TECHNIQUES
. OPTIMIZATION 1 10
PC/MS-DOS. Amiga, Macintosh, some CP/M
VISA, MasterCard, AMEX, Check
P.O. Box 379, ALBURG, VT 05440
(514) 933-4918
Inquiry 210
I/O Bus for Data Acquisition & Control
now available for IBM PC & Apple II series computers
The Local Applications Bus v v .-^LAB 40'
In photo are ' LAB 40-PC' g«n»reIor t LAB 40- 1 ' signal icnumimn modula
• Modular approach to dala acquisition and control.
A 40 conductor ribbon cable bus is generated by a card in the host
computer Up to 8 low cost modules can be located anywhere on
a cable up to 100 M long Our LAB 40 generator cards fo. the IBM
PC or Apple I' are priced at $175
• Signal Acquisition and Control Module, model LAB 40-1*.
Features: 8 bit resolution, 4 channels, differential inputs, sampling
rate up lo 650KHz software programmable gains and offset, digital
output port, low price of 1175 Twelve bit module available
• Full featured 'digital oscilloscope' software.
Documented and use' modify-able PC version $175 Apple II
version $100 Complete data acquisition packages (hardware
and software) start at $4S0
• Development tool.
Unique lo LAB 40 is its ability to interlace directly to microprocessor
compatible integrated circuits and hybrids We encourage users to
develop projects and products LAB 40 is an ideal educational tool
• New low coat modules.
Twelve bit A/D $235 Port/Relay Driver $95 Real Time Clock $95
Computer Continuum
75 Southgate Ave Suite 6 • Daly City, CA 94015
(415) 755-1978
i A COMPLETE FULLY
INTEGRATED ACCOUNTING SYSTEM
for PC-DOS*
A powerful, time proven, (3'/2 yrs)
flexible, w/integrity package
including
GENERAL LEDGER
ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE
ORDER ENTRY/INVOICING
ACCOUNTS PAYABLE
INVENTORY
PAYROLL
only*
mso
plus shipping & handling
(800) 344-2540
7 am lo 7 pm MST
S-O-F-T-W-A-R. E-
2609 Kootenai Box 6886 Boise, Idaho 83707
'PC-DOS trademark of IBM
Quelo 1 boUUU Devel °P ment
v^ Tools
68000/68010 Assembler Package
Assembler, linker, object librarian and extensive indexed
typeset manuals.
Conforms to Motorola structured assembler, publication
M68KMASM(4], Macros, cross reference and superb load
map, 31 character symbols.
Optimized lot CP/M-80. 86, -68K. MS-DOS. PC-DOS , $ 595
Portable Source in "C" $3000
Lattice' 68000 "C" Cross Compiler
and Quelo 68000/68010 Assembler Package
Optimized for MS-DOS $1095
68200 Assembler Package
Optimized for CP/M-80, MS-DOS, PC-DOS $595
68020 Assembler Package
Optimized tor CP/MMK, MS-DOS $ 750
Portable Source in "C" $3500
For more information contact Quelo Inc.
2464 33rd W, Suite #173
Patrick Adams Seattle, WA 98199
Phone (206) 285-2528
COD, Visa, MasterCard Telex II (TWX) 910-333-8171
CP/M, tm DRI MS-DOS tm Microsoft Lattice, tm Lattice Inc
The Truth
of the Matter is...
Prevail is a UNIX-based office automation
and application development solution which
can be shipped to you today If you are looking
for office automation software or need a
fourth-generation language, look to Prevail —
an A T &T co-labeled product
Prevail has seven components which will
meet your needs
• Word Processing
• Spreadsheet
• Database Management Svstem
• Window Manager and User Interface
• Report Writer
• Applications Development Language
• Telecommunications
Prevail is available on AT&T 3B series, AT&T
Unix PC Model 7300. NCR Tower DEC VAX
and MicroVax II series, Sun Microsystems
computers, and Masscomp computers
== 2T~ _ 3j = Inspiration Systems, Inc.
5 a. ~^5 100 Cummings Park. Suite 4300
=r — — . 5 35 Woburn. MA 01801
Inquiry 418
Inquiry 308
Inquiry 181
MAXELL DISKETTE
Special Offer
Maxell offers a line ol floppy diskettes that come to youcertiliea
Ireeot dropouts Maxell s 5 25 high dens.ty MD2 HD tor the IBM
PC AT and the 3.5" 'of the MACINTOSH LISA AND HP PC Now.
when you pu'chase these diskettes save 5°o on 5 boxes or 1 0%
on 10 boxes Call todav tor this savings and unbeatable prices on
Maxell Diskettes from Computet Products Supply
Computer Products Supply
320 N. Madison Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90004
CALL TOLL FREE
(800) 621-0849 ext 285
OR CALL COLLECT
(213) 664-1144
UNIX, C and UNIX
SHELL TRAINING
Asidor Systems Inc. offers four-day
workshops in UNIX, C and Shell
programming at their Union, NJ
office. The following courses are
offered:
• C Programming
• Advanced C Programming
• Unix Shell Programming
• Advanced Unix
• UNIX Workshop
For more information,
write or call:
Asidor Systems Inc.
2143 Morris Avenue
Union, New Jersey 07083
201-687-6780
controls up
to 4 motors
from any CRT
terminal or
computer
STEPPING
MOTOR
CONTROLLER
• powerful 5 amps/ • acceleration
winding deceleration
• RS232 interface • 1-4 axis moves
Standard Version with BASIC $985
16k BASIC with Battery Backup $1335
CNC VERSION $1950
Stepping Motor Tips Cookbook $8
CNC Manual $12
CENTROID (814) 237-4535
Box 739, State College, PA 16804
Inquiry 79
inquiry 27
Inquiry 55
o
COMPUTERBANC
Buy 2 of one product ond get 5% off
(systems excluded)
IBM PC AT 20 MB
(Seagate model 225)
51 2K. serial & parallel
$4299
Hard Drives
10 MB Internal 459
10 MB external 639
20 MB Internal 549
20 MB external 729
IBM PC XT
10 MB . 256K
$2589
RT COMPRTIBICS
SPCRRV IT 44 Ml
$4399
CPSON CQUITV I CALL
COMMODORC AMIGA CALL
COMPAQ DCSK PRO
10 MB, 640K^^<r
42499 ^^ >1*»t»
Z.HVY ^ 256K 2 drive
in XTRR
* All systems include monocrome monitor, dos, and porollel port
IBM SOFTU1RRC
LOTUS 123 CRll
SVMPHONV e»u
CNRRIC 389.00
0<M COLLCCTION 119.00
ASHTON TRTC Framework 37».00
dBRSe II Mt.OO
dBHSeill SM.00
CLIPPCA dBASt III Compter . 179.00
MUITIMRTC 1 39.00
SORCIM SUPeRCRLC III . 110.00
SUP€R PHOJ6CT tlO.OO
MKROSOF T MuKlplon 115.00
Word tt».00
Project 159.00
FOX • OCUCR Oulckcode 139.00
NORTON UTILITICS 52 00
TURBO PASCAL ver 5.0 4».00
■MM V 37.00
SIDCKKK (unprotected) 44.00
RSCI MO C<xnm Software 59.00
CROSSTALK XVI 105.00
PCRCHTRCC Bock to Basics 101.00
IN MOUS( RCCOUNTRNT 89.00
WORD PttlftCX 149.00
MICROPRO WordStar Pro 159.00
WordStar 2000 + 314.00
SAMNAPIUS 345.00
WORD III 179.00
RMSC S000 389.00
PRINTMRSTCR 35.00
«N€AOAAPHICS 169 00
API General Recounting . . 314.00
ALSO HRVDCN, MONOORRM. Ml,
MIC8OCO8IM, NORTON RND MORC
IBM HAflDUIRM
R5T 6 Pock Plus uj. 384k 150.00
Advantage lll/128k 417.00
HCRCUICS Mono Graphics 319.00
Color Cord . 15»i)0
ORCHID Turbo uj. 256k 599.00
OURDRRM Quodboord O-K 1*0.00
QuodPort for RT ser & par 115.00
TCCHMRR Graphics Master . 469.00
STB Rio plus 64K S function . 189.00
Rio Grande 3 function for RT . 189.00
Grophtt Plus 110.00
High Res 400 349.00
Choffeur monographs N€ ID . 134.00
PRRRDISC Modular Graphxs Cord CRU
SIOMR High Res Color 400 CRll
IBM Compatible color cord 119.00
Multifunction Cord 384k s. p. dek . 149.00
Multifunction Cord OK-1, 2mb . 179.00
Compatible Mono Cord uj/por . 119.00
5151 Compatible Keyboard 119.00
TTl Monitor flmb or Gm 100.00
TAUOAASS Ill/Tope CRll
IRIUIN TRP€ DfllVC 499.00
CVCRCX TRPC Pc/Xt/RT CRll
Graphics €dge Cord CRll
ROMMC 20MBDRIVC CRll
TCRC55BV 93.00
MM 1 2MB H OPPV CRll
360K Floppy for RT 115.00
MOUSC SVSTCMS Mouse 139.00
MICROSOFT Mouse 117.00
KORIR KRT 149.00
MSKfTTCS DS/DD 13.00
RISO — PCRSVST, PRARDISt,
TCCHMRR, CVCRCX RND OTHCRS
MODCMS
ANCHOR Express 300/1200 f 19.00
Volksmodem 1200 (5 yr ujrnty) . . . 149.95
lightning 2400 Baud CRll
HRVCS1200 379.00
1200B 349.00
2400 CRU
Mlcromodem //e CRll
TronsetlOOO CRll
PROMCTHCUS 1200 193.00
Promodem 1200B U9.00
Promodem 1200R 189.00
Promodem Mac Pac Poc Hit 319.00
MONITORS
RMDCK 300R 139.00
310R Hi-Res Rmber 155.00
COLOR 600 HI-RC-S RGB 433.00
COLOR 710 474.00
PRINCCTON GRAPHICS HX-12 449.00
HX-9 449.00
Sfl-12 413.00
MRX-12 179.00
TRXRN 121/122 149.00
640 (RGB) 640 x 200 NCUI 333.00
630 (RGB) 640 i 400 NCUI 399.00
640 (RGB) 720 i 400 NCUI . . 4*9.00
PRNRSONIC DT-S101 Color 179.00
DT-H103 10 "High Res RGB 349.00
DT-D1300D 13" RGB Color 149.00
PfllNTCRS
■ROTHCR NCUI 1509 345.00
HR-15XL 343.00
HR-25XL 449.00
HR-35XL 499.00
Tcuinujriter 811.00
CPSON LX-80 1*5.00
FX-85 343.00
FX-185 415.00
OHIDRTR ML192 373.00
ML-193 512.00
PRNRSONIC KX-P1091 119.00
KX-P1092 179.00
KX-P1093 399.00
KX-P313117cpsLQ 149.00
KX-P315122cpslQ 379.00
TOSHI1RP351 uj/troctor 1179.00
STRR MIAONICS SG-10 119.00
crrizcNMSP-io 144.00
MSP-15 331.00
CRNNON Loser Printer
HOUSTON INSTRUMCNTS Plotters
CRll
CRll
RPPLC PRODUCTS
RPPIMD CNO. Rarmuorks 64K 149.00
RST Multl I/O CRll
MICRO SCI R2 Drive lie 149.00
Ik compatible drive 139.00
RPPIC Compatible Or (lyr ujrnty) 119.00
HRM Mac drive CRll
MRC Compatible 3 M drive 149.00
•CRNOUUI 5MB MRC drive CRU
MACINTOSH Horddrive CRU
MACINTOSH Software Jazz CRU
MICROSOFT Mocenhoncer 175.00
Softcard II 159.00
Multi-plan //e&Moc 119.00
Bask (Mac) 109.00
ASCII XPRCSS (communications) 49.00
THC DCSK ORORNIZCR (Mac) 133.00
RPPIC MOUSC II 11*.00
RPPICUIORKS 113.00
PAINTSHOP 30.00
HRVCSMoch III Joystick 39.00
SVSTCM SRVCR Fan 49.00
VIDCO 7 Ik Cnhancer 9*.00
Titan Accelerator 119.00
VIDCX Ultroterm 149.00
RPRICORN (Lifetime UUorronty)
Super Serial Imager 49.00
Graphics Interface 59.00
80 Column/64K 59.00
Extend It 64K 39.00
KORIR SpeedMey **.00
Muppet Keys 39.00
DISKCTTCSRPPie MAC 11.00.14.00
RPPIC He 64k uu/80 column 775.00
UIC SUPPORT THCSC FINC SVSTCMS:
RPPIC, IBM, COMPAQ, ITT,
RND MRNV MORC
No Chora* for Credit Cords
Coll for complete pricing. Thousands of products available.
O
XOMPUTERBANC
16783 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach, CR 92647
T€L€X #550757 RNSUICR BRCK— COMPUTCR UD
714/841-6160
2E No Chorge for Credit Cords
Orders Only
800 332 BANC
OUTSID€ CALIFORNIA
Cosh prices indicated fill products ore In Factory sealed packages. LUe guarantee oD Items for 30 days. Within thrs period, defective merchandise returns must
be accompanied bu RMfi number. Rll other returns will be subject to o 10% restocking Fee. For prepaid orders, there will be o 3% shipping chorge; 5% for UPS
Blue Label; SS 00 minimum, all orders outside US A. at 15% shipping California residents odd 6% soles tax Prices subject to change without notice.
I Copyright 1985 COMPUT6R8FINC, fill flights fleserved.
Inquiry 82
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 447
"KING OF THE ELECTRONICS JUNGLE"
LEO ELECTRONICS, INC.
PO Box 11307
TORRANCE, CA 90510-1307
PHONE 213/212-6133 or
outside CA 800/421-9665
TLX 291 985 LEO UR FAX 213/212*106
WE WILL BEAT ANY PRICE
ON MEMORY EXPANSION CHIPS
RAMS
4125615
4164 15
4164 20
4128-15 (AT)
6116P3
•58167
"(real lime Clock)
E PROMS
2708
27ie
27 3?
2764
27128
27256
EACH
2 85
■; 25
- BS
9 H
260
Hard ro find 'NECESSARY
PARTS FOR IBM OR CLONE
8284 4 35
8088 495
8288 6 75
6253 5 3 50
8255-5 3 50
8259 5 5 50
8237 5 6 75
765 7 00
OH
29 95
Save — $12.35
qu»My msrchsneisi
MATH COPROCESSORS
Individually boxvd with instruction manual
FAST!!!
Discover why MicroSPEEO t-ias set a new standard
for microcomputer performance worldwide This
easy-to-use Language System has proven results in
the most demanding applications, from the Space
Shuttle to medical diagnosis Hardware & software
A-ork together to boost your Apple or Amiga to
minicomputer speed {1oOO-2500°o increase)
CALL TOLL-FREE NOW
W 800-272-0777 301-627-6650
or write Applied Informatics, Inc..
■ Wheeling Ave , Upper Marlboro, MD 20772
The GRANDSTAND
PRINTER STAND AND TRAY
• Folds & Stacks Automatically
• Fits ALL Popular Micro Printers
• Space Saving Operation
• Routes Cables Neatly
Grand Union
Micro Systems
RO. Box 1 880
Fallbrook, CA 92028
(619)723-0882
Inquiry 206
Inquiry 2 1
Inquiry 1 56
MODULAR
DATA ACQUISITION
• For IBM & Compatibles
• Flexible and Inexpensive
• Money Back Guarantee
• Free Technical Support
Fast Delivery
QUA TECH, INC.
478 E Exchange St Akron OH 44304
(2161434-3154 TLX: 5101012726
O
l±J
"^ (Dimensions 6"x4'■x3/4 , • J"^
B I -D I REC T I ONftL SER I HI 'PARALLEL C0NUERTER
CONUERT YOUR RS232 SERIAL PORT INTO A
CENTRONICS PARALLEL PORT, YOUR PARALLEL
=0RT INTO A RS232 SERIAL PORT, JUST By
M0UING JLinPERS.
NO TORE LldlTATIONS IN YOUR STi
YOU CAN CONNECT A TERnlNAL TO PARALLEL
PORT, YOUR PARALLEL PRINTER TO A SERIAL
SORT, SERIAL PRINTER TO A PARALLEL PORT,
WCH noRE ! 8 .
BAUD RATE AND MODE FULLY SELECTABLE.
SS ALL IN ONLY ONE UNIT 5 2
: - ..£- ' --' " '--iODUCTORY PRICE AT:
INTECTRA INC. - Department 232
2629 TERMINAL BLU
MOUNTAIN UIEU - CA - 94043
(415) 967-8818 - TLX 345545
Introductory price S .""9.99
(California residents add 6* tax -
Bay aTea residents add 7x tax)
RS-422
Communications Board
For IBM-PC/AT/XT and
compatibles
Dual RS-422 serial interface
Programmable to 56k baud
Differential drivers to 4000 ft.
$345.00
QUA TECH, INC.
478 E. Exchange St. Akron OH 44304
(216)434-3154 TLX: 5101012726
<J>
Inquiry 302
inquiry 1 82
Inquiry 303
Bl LK DISKETTES
BY
NASHUA
^975
♦
each
yt\ Iiki
5'i OS'DD with hub ring and Tyvek sleeve Oui*
packaged no labels tactory ivarranteed Shipping
extra For quantity 50. add 10c each
Get the same low price our high-volume
duplication customers get!
CALL TOLL FREE
1-800-321-4668
in Colora
MASTERCA
ALF
n Colorado, 303-2340871
\ ISA, MASTERCARD, OR COD ACCEPTED
1315-F Nelson St
Denver. CO 80215
WAVEFORM
SYNTHESIZER
For IBM-PC/XT/AT and
compatibles
Generates user-definable signal
Up to 2000 points per envelope
$795.00
QUA TECH, INC.
478 E. Exchange St. Akron OH 44304
(216)434-3154 TLX: 5101012726
(J)
•<&/ The Linker
for Turbo Pascal '
Why recompile tested procedures over and
over while debugging vour Turbo Past al nro-
| grams, when TP*Linker'" can instantly link
| ihern in — already compiled. TP*Linker turns
.■our compiled Turbo Pascal procedures into
ompact. linkable external procedures
| Linkable procedures use Va ihe memory .is
iheir Turbo Pascal source code. So you » an
I bring them in off disk faster and store more
of them on RAM disk TP*Linker is easy to
use. self-dot umenting, and works from the
Turbo Pascal Program Development Knvi
| ronment An extra bonus — now you can sell |
procedures written in Turbo Pascal as link-
able procedures without having to disclose
your source code. Why waste lime re-
compiling code that you know works/
TP*Linker--the ideal upgrade for anyone I
using Turbo Pascal.
No! copv protected
TP*Linker for Turbo 2.0. 3.0 $H9
+ BCD. 8087 $99
Add SSS + H + SKI for Overseas. NIC VISA|
A-OK Systems
Hid fcasltiV SI Silver Spring. Ml) .
301-585-5105 (6)
dl i
rk of norland In
Inquiry 12
Inquiry 304
Inquiry 3
FORTRON CORPORATION
3225 SELDON COURT, FREMONT, CA 94538
INFORMATION & CALIF. RESIDENTS
(415] 490-8171
TLX: 559291 FORTRON
FAX: [415] 490 9156
When choosing a POWER SUPPLY lor your PC, XT, AT or Compatibles
please consider this. . .
"All look-alike supplies come with some type of
warranty, only Fortron's power supplies come with a
guarantee backed by a full U.L. rating.
Your PC represents a substantial investment, it does not
make sense to risk costly downtime due to bargain
power supplies, when for a few dollars more you can
have the confidence of Fortron quality."
Trust in Fortron quality without compromise.
PC/XT
189*
PC/AT
FC 5192
[200 W. max.]
• Identical dimension & pin-out to
IBM AT power supply
• Faraday type pin-out available
• W/4 drives connectors
• High air flow, low noise DC fan,
110/230 VAC convertible
• OCP, OVP, short circuit,
thermostat protections
• U.L. recognition, one year
warranty
FC 135-40 (140 W. max.] 129°°
• For upgrade IBM PC to XT same pin out, same
dimension as IBM PC, XT
• or 8 pin output connectors for Faraday
CPU board
• With 4 drives connectors
• Low noise DC fan, 110/230 VAC convertible
• Over current, over voltage, short circuit, thermostat
protections
• U.L. recognition, one year warranty
FORTRON-200
[200 W. Uninterruptible
Power System for P.C.]
• 115V/230V AC input convertible
• Input current 2.5 amp
• 200W continuous
• V2 cycle (typical) transfer time
• Hold-up time from 20 minutes (200W)
up to 60 minutes (60W)
• 5. 12" X 7.7" X 13.46"
ORDER TOLL FREE [800] 821-9771
Attractive Prices for Dealers/OEM's
Please Call for Current Prices!
COMPUTER CHASSIS & KEYBOARD
FC630
79"
For Faraday
DTC BRD
Rear side switch
To use FC 130-40
power supply
Complete mount-
ing hardware
FC 230 Floppy
Disk Controller
• Drives 4 X 5Vi "
FDD
• IBM compatible
• w/cable
59°
FC 630 A2
gg«
IBM XT identical
To use FC 135-40
power supply
Side switch
Complete mount-
ing parts
FC330 Hard
Disk Controller
• Up to 2 Hard
Disk Drives
• Fully Buffered I/O
Bus
• Built-in ECC
149°
FC 630 AT
139"
HI '
IBM AT identical
Complete mount-
ing hardware
LED lamps,
speaker optional
FC 640 Expansion Chassis
269°° Ext./Rcv.
Adaptor
179 00
Comes with 5 slot mother
brd., 100 W. power supply,
cooling fan
Three V2 height drive bracket
Dia. 15'/2"xl2'x6'/.'
Ext. /Rev. Adaptor optional
CT 6020 Color/
Graphic/Printer
• 80x25 Hi-Res
40x25 Low-Res
• 320x200 Dots
• Comp. video output
• Light pen conn.
109°
FC940 R3232
/Real Time
Clock
• To 9600 Baud
• Battery back-up
69°° 59°°
Clock only
FC427
m
89"
: mi\
IBM XT keyboard
compatible
Enlarged return
key
Light and num.
lock keys
FC 830 512K
Memory
Expansion
• From 64K to 512K
• Parity-checked
memory for error
detection
89°°
Low Low Cost for IBM PC, XT, AT Add-On Cards
FC527
129°
IBM AT keyboard
compatible
Enlarged return
shift key
Capacitance low
profile key
switch
FC 730 AT
Multifunction
Card for PC-AT
249°°
• Game Port
• 2 EIA-RS232C port
• Centronics printer
port
• 128K to 1.5MB
memory using
64/256K DRAM
• Expandable to 3MB
(optional)
• Spooler
• RAM disk
FC 930 RS232/
Parallel Port
• RS232 serial
• Parallel interface
79"
FC530
Monochrome/
Printer
• 8 x 25 screen
• 7 X 9 character
• TTL Level of output
99"
ai.iji... i :u EEna
• w/Swivels
• Hi-Res for IBM PC
CT-6040
Monochrome/Graphic/
Printer
• 80 x 25 text mode
• 720 x 348 graphic mode
• Runs Lotus 1-2-3
• 64K Graphic Display Mem.
129"
l . l -. l i ' JJJ
FC 730 [CT-6050C]
384K Multif unctions
• Memory Expansion to
384K
• Clock/Calendar
• Serial, parallel interface
• Game port
129"
19°
11"
• Hard Disk Drive Cable
(34p-34p)
• Floppy Drive Cable . . .
• 9 pin D type to 25 pin
D type for PCAT 19™
> Printer cable 25 DB to
. Centronics 19°°
RS232 to RS232 cable .19°°
► Power cord w/female
socket 2°°
TEAC
TEAC
55GV
55BV
1.2MB
360K
F.D.D.
F.D.D.
for
PC-AT
89°°
139oo
10MB
H.D.D.
44goo
20MB
H.D.D.
559"
(H.D.D.
w/cable
controller)
Internal Modem
179°°
Free PC-Talk
Software
300/1200 baud
Auto Busy
Redial, Auto
Answer
Dual phone jack
plus RS232 port
RAM
CHIPS
64K.
256K.
. . . 6»7
9 pes.
.33°°/
9 pes.
128K 53/9 set
(for PC-AT)
RS232/
Printer
Card for
PC-AT
EIA RS232C
port
Centronics
parallel port
119*
PRINTER
99 "
69"7io pc.
Thermo
80 character/
line
Battery
Back-up
Centronics
parallel
interface
TERMS
• Min. shipping & handling
$6.00.
Can be more for actual cost.
• CA. Res. add 6.5% tax.
• No return merchandise without
a RMA No.
• Restocking charge 15%.
» Prices subject to change
w/o notice.
Inquiry 144 for End-Users. Inquiry 145 for DEALERS ONLY.
DECEMBER 1985 'BYTE 449
CADD for $9995
GENERIC CADD is a sophisticated
& easy to use Computer Aided
Drafting/Design program for PCs
GENERIC CADD Features:
Drawing Layers • Component Libraries
Component Libraries • User-Defined Fonts
Video & Digitizer Menus • Color Graphics
Other Available GENERIC
Software:
AUTOCAD™ file conversion for $24.95
Dot Matrix printer/plotter option for $24. 95
Call 1-800-228-3601 to order
So dealer coils, please.
MC. VISA, COD. Add $3.00 for shipping
60 day money back guarantee
GENERIC SOFTWARE
6 Lake Bellevue, Suite 203
Bellevue, WA 98005
(206)462-1944
__ FOR THE BEST OF US. .
■"■ THECVPHSR
A COMPLETE 68000 & Z80A
SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER SYSTEM
WITH ULTRA-HIGH-RES GRAPHICS!!
Ik
ALL ON ONE BOARD 1
IIL
MOTEL COMPUTERS LI
1 74 BETTY ANN DRIVE. WILLOWDALE
TORONTO. ONTARIO CANADA M2N 1X6
14181 J3B-4727
RS232C IBM PC Compatible
Paper Tape Transmitter/Model 612
Stops and starts on character at all speeds
uses manual control or X-on. X-off 90-260
volt. 50-60 Hz power 50-9600 baud, up to 150
char/sec synchronous or asynchronous
gated internal or external clock, RS 232C
current loop or parallel output, reads 5-8 level
tape, 7-11 frames per character, even or odd
parity Desk top or rack mount.
Addmaster Corporation, 415 Junipero Serra
Drive, San Gabriel, CA 91 776, (81 8) 285-1 1 21 ,
Telex 674770 Addmaster SGAB
Inquiry I5I
Inquiry 253
Inquiry 7
DISK PARK
■ / parking lots for your disks
while working
■jr.iw to save, easy lo get.
very useful
■ protect disks from damaged
■ no more mess on desk
■J money back guaranteed
Only $3.75 51.00 shipping
N.Y. residents add 8% sales tax
sent check to:
COMET TECHNOLOGY INC
68-44 Burns St Apt C3
Forest Hills. N Y 11375
(718)793-1065
INLAB 28
LOGIC/MEMORY
PROGRAMMER
It must be magic!
How else could
INLAB load all
these features into such a small package:
• Capable of programming hundreds of logic
and memory devices!
• Small and portable-less than 26 ounces'
• Inexpensive firmware updating!
•Available with CUPL™ design software!
•Standard RS232 interface!
• EPROM emulation, from 2716 up to 27256
(including CMOS)!
It's no illusion! For only $1995. we can make
a Model 28 appear before vour very eyes!
Just give us a call at 303/460-0103.
We'd like to do some
magic for you!
IMAB
A Hathai*av Company
2150-1 West 6th Avenue
Broomheid, CO 80020
SH
SS / DD $
Soft
BASF
.89
.99.
FLEXYDISKS
10-90 100-
■ «s£ ea
DS/DD 31 ftO
Soft \.\JC
High Density $0 -j C SO flC
(IBM -AT) 0. I J O.UJ
3.5 / SS
Micro
In Stock — Immediate Shipment.
Mastercard, VISA, Check or Money Order.
Add $3.00 shipping charges per each 100 or part.
Add $2.50 additional for COD shipments
N.J. residents add 6% sales tax.
Data Exchange
Dept B. P.O. Box 993
178 Route 206 South
Somerville. N.J. 08876
(201) 874-5050
S 2.KL $ 2.05
Inquiry 417
Inquiry 180
Inquiry 103
DYNAMIC RAMS
41256
•41256
4164
•4164
128K
120ns
150ns
120ns
150ns
150ns
s 3.15
_ S P.75_
s 5.50
I COPROCESSORS
8087-2 S140.00
8087-3 S1 15.00
80287-3 $195.00
I STATIC RAMS
6264LP-15 50rs $4.50
6116LP-3 -Mil-, $1.75
■ E. PROMS
27C256 2S
27256 Z5
27128
27C64
2764 250ns S
2732A 250ns S
■ 8000 s fPjrts Avail
'00n
I.C. EXPRESS
ORDER
(818)369-2688
| CALL FOR CURRENT PRICES & VOLUME DISCOUNTS.|
e Shown to' UPS COO Cash • MasterCard VISA add 3' mi
Prices are SUD|BC1 10 I nange Minimum Ofdci HQ 00
Crili'jrn. j---. .i.-nl:. mue.i ,n lit 6 5 , sales lax
ppmg B Handling UPS Ground S5 [» 1,'PS Air S7 00 (under 1
ALL MERCHANDISE IS 100'-o GUARANTEED
Inquiry 177
mi mARYmfic industries ,n C
800-231-3680
Radio Shack® Tandy®
Epson Printers
People you Trust to give you the very Best!
• Lowest
Discount
Prices
• Reliable
Service
• Quality
Products
"World's largest independent authorized computer dealer."
22511 Katv Fwv , Katy (Houston) Texas 77450
(713) 392-0747 Telex 774132
NO SHIPPING CHARGES
ORDER TOLL-FREE 800-824-3432
CHRISTMAS SPECIALS
DRIVES
TEAC 55B 79.99
TANDON 100-4 (96 T P I ) 129.99
EPSON HD860 20 MEG ' i HT HARD DISK
WITH CONTROLLERS CABLES 599.99
SYSTEMS
BLUEXTRA
• PC/XT Compatible • 8 Slot Motherboard
• 1-V4 HT. 360K Floppy • 256K RAM
• 1 35W Power Supply • Runs IBM Dos 2 1 or 3 1
FULL WARRANTY 699.99
MONITORS
Princeton Graphics MAX- 12-HI-RES Amber
with HI-RES Controller Card 299.99
Princeton Graphics HX- 1 2 RGB with
Color Graphics Card 549.99
ADD ON CARDS
Multifunction Card W/384K RAM
Included Serial/Parallel Port.
Clock/Calendar. Game Port 159.99
NICORN ELECTRONICS
lOOiOCanoga Ave UmiB-8 Chatsworth CA913I1
[hipping charges on P'
■d orders -C D 3daS3 00
Inquiry 225
Inquiry 366
imw
IBM PC, 256K, One Half Height
320K Disk Drive DS/DD, Persyst
Color Card With Printer Port, Taxan
Green Monitor, DOS 2.1, PLUS a
10MB Hard Disk Sub System All For:
$2499.
IBM PC, 256K, Two Half Height
Drives DS/DD, Persyst Color Card
With Printer Port, Taxan Green Moni-
tor, DOS 2.1 , 130 Watt Power Supply
PLUSa 10MB Hard Disk Sub System
All For:
$2799.
IBM PC, 256K, Two Half Height
Drives DS/DD, Persyst Color Card
With Printer Port, Taxan Green Moni-
tor, DOS 2.1 , 130 Watt Power Supply,
10MB Hard Disk Sub System, PLUS
10MB Tape Back Up System All For:
$3299.
IBM PC, 256K, Two Half Height
Drives DS/DD, Persyst Color Card
With Printer Port, Taxan Green Moni-
tor, DOS 2.1, 130 Watt Power Supply,
20MB Hard Disk Sub System All For:
$3099.
IBM PC, 256K, Two Half Height
Drives DS/DD, Persyst Color Card
With Printer Port, Taxan Green Moni-
tor, DOS 2.1 , 130 Watt Power Supply,
20MB Hard Disk Sub System, PLUS
10MB Tape Back Up System All For:
$3699.
AMDEK 300 Green $135.00
AMDEK 300 Amber $149.00
AMDEK 310 Amber W/TTL Plug _ $165.00
PGS HX-12 $465.00
PGS MAX-12 $185.00
PGS SR-12 $625.00
TAXAN #115 Green Composit $125.00
TAXAN #116 Amber Composit $135.00
TAXAN #121 Green W/TTL Plug _ $149.00
TAXAN #122 Amber W/TTL Plug _ $159.00
TAXAN #620 COLOR MONITOR _ $449.00
TAXAN #640 COLOR MONITOR _ $569.00
IBM MONOCHROME DISPLAY _ $260.00
IBM COLOR DISPLAY $590.00
COf/IPAQ,
comPAa
CALL
FOR DIFFERENT
CONFIGURATIONS
^«^*'\
PRINTERS
CONQUEST PC TURBO 640K Two
Half Height Drives, Floppy Disk Con-
troller 135 Watt Power Supply, Serial
Port, Parallel Port (IBM Standard) and
Enhanced Keyboard:
$1225.
Above System With 10MB Internal
Hard Disk:
$1970.
With 20MB Internal Hard Disk:
$2195.
With 40MB Internal Hard Disk:
$2515.
Tape Back Up Systems Are Also
Available for the Conquest PC Turbo at
a reasonable price.
NEC PINWRITER 80 COL.
$599.00
NEC PINWRITER 136 COL.
$799.00
EPSON LX 80
$239.00
EPSON FX 85
$359.00
EPSON FX 185
$499.00
EPSON RX 100
$399.00
EPSON JX 80
$499.00
EPSON LQ 1500
$895.00
COMREXCR420
$1895.00
TOSHIBA 351
$1199.00
STARMICRONICSSG10
$25900
STARMICRONICSSG15
$395.00
CITIZEN PRINTER MSP-10
$325.00
CITIZEN PRINTER MSP-15
$450.00
CITIZEN PRINTER MSP-20
$435.00
CITIZEN PRINTER MSP-25
$599.00
JUKI LQ 6100
$385.00
JUKI LQ 6300
$725.00
BROTHER HR-25
$499.00
BROTHER HR-35
$775.00
DYNAX DX 15XL
$365.00
OKIDATA
CALL
MULTIFUNCTION BOARDS
SPECIAL
13" RGB MONITOR
FORTIS FC10
AST I/O MINI CARD, 1-SER.
AST SIX PACK 64K, 1-SER., 1-PAR .
AST PREVIEW
AST ADVANTAGE CARD
128KFORAT
$299.
00
ALR CHALLENGER CARD
128K FOR AT
MODEMS
HAYES SMART MODEM 1200 .
HAYES SMART MODEM 300 _
HAYES 1200B PLUG IN CARD .
HAYES 2400 BAUD MODEM _
POP COM 1200 EXTERNAL _
AST REACH MODEM
QIC MODEM INTERNAL
_$395.00
. $209.00
. $365.00
. $699.00
. $375.00
. $380.00
. $275.00
PERSYST COLOR
PRINTER ADAPTER
PERSYST MONOCHROME
PRINTER ADAPTER
PERSYST BOB CARD
HERCULES COLOR
PRINTER ADAPTER
HERCULES GRAPHIC
PRINTER ADAPTER
STB GRAPHIC PLUS II
IBM COLOR GRAPHIC ADAPTER .
IBM MONO PRINTER ADAPTER _
. $145.00
. $249.00
. $299.00
. $425.00
. $395.00
_ $179.00
. $189.00
. $395.00
_ $179.00
. $299.00
. $325.00
_$225.00
. $230.00
TANDON TM-100-2 DS/DD _
TOSHIBA SLIMLINE DS/DD
TEAC SLIMLINE DS/DD
. $139.00
. $120.00
. $120.00
HARD DISKS
GENOA SPECTRUM GRAPHIC CARD _ $349.00
_ i _^ OjBPHAL. ... ..... ,.
MAXELL DISKETTES MD2 $35.00/box
MAXELL MD2-HDM FOR AT $60.00/box
CONTROL DATA DISKETTES $24.00
KEYTRONIC KEYBOARD KB 5151 $169.00
10MB SUB SYSTEM INTERNAL _
EXTERNAL .
20MB SUB SYSTEM INTERNAL
EXTERNAL.
40MB SUB SYSTEM INTERNAL _
EXTERNAL _
_ $595.00
_ $795.00
_ $875.00
. $1050.00
_$1 150.00
. $1325.00
IBM PC-XT AND POAT
Different configurations
available.
CALL FOR PRICES.
HARD DISKS & TAPS BACK-UP UNITS
(EXTERNAL)
10MB HARD DISK
W/10MB TAPE BACK UP
20MB HARD DISK
W/10MB TAPE BACK UP.
40MB HARD DISK
W/10MB TAPE BACK UP.
. $1250.00
. $1475.00
_$1795.00
(714) 838-7530
2630 Walnut Avenue. Unit C, Tustin, California 92680
Prices 8 availability subiect to change without notice— IBM is a registered trademark o! IBM Corporation COMPAQ is a registered trademark of COMPAO Computer Corporation Conquest is a
registered trademark of Conquest Computer Industries.
Inquiry 245
DECEMBER
BYTE 451
Your System/Controller should fit you
like a good suit .
LET MICROMINT
CUSTOM FIT YOU
Whether it's suits or system controllers,
you can't buy off the rack when you
need a custom fit.
That's why Micromint individualizes
its system controllers to meet your par-
ticular needs and budget. What's most
important to you? Software compati-
bility? Speed? Everything on one
board? Economical computing power?
ffl: "I want software
compatibility. "
Solution:
THESB180
COMPUTER/CONTROLLER
The SB180, only 4" by 7%", offers a
Z80 compatible CPU running at 6MHz,
256K bytes of RAM, up to 32K bytes
of ROM, two serial ports, a parallel
port, Z80/6800 I/O expansion bus,
and an industry standard 765A-com-
patible disk controller for up to four
disk drives - any combinations of
ZVi", 5%" or 8" drives. The SB180 is
based on the Hitachi HD64180 CPU.
a microcoded CMOS chip which pro-
vides high performance, reduced system
cost, and low power operation while
maintaining complete compatibility
with the large base of standard CP/M
software.
SB180-1 w/8K ROM monitor. . $369.00
SB180-5 w/8K ROM monitor.
BIOS source and
Z system $418.00
ft1\"l need speed. "
Solution:
THEZ8 FORTH
SYSTEM/CONTROLLER
The Z8 FORTH System/Controller is
only 4" by 4Vi" and includes a custom
masked Z8 version of the FORTH
452 B YTE • DECEMBER 1985
language with a full screen editor,
cassette I/O driver primitives, EPROM
programmer primitives, and other util-
ity words. It also contains up to 4K
bytes of RAM or EPROM, an RS 232
serial port with selectable baud rates,
and two parallel ports. Additional Z8
peripheral boards include memory ex-
pansion, a smart terminal board, serial
and parallel I/O, real time clock an A/D
converter, and an EPROM programmer.
It's perfect for data reduction and
high speed control applications.
BCC21 \n /utilities . . . $225 00
#3: "Let me have an entire
development system on
one board. "
Solution:
THE BCC52
SYSTEM/CONTROLLER
The BCC52 is a new stand alone single
board microcomputer which is bus
compatible with the Micromint BCC1 1
BCC21 Z8 System/Controllers and ex-
pansion boards. The BCC52 features
the Intel 8052AH-BASIC micropro-
cessor which includes a ROM resident
8K byte floating point BASIC inter-
preter with extensions for process con-
trol work. It contains sockets for up to
48K bytes of RAM/EPROM, an "intel-
ligent" 2764/128 EPROM programmer,
3 parallel ports, a serial terminal port,
and a serial printer port.
BCC52 .
. $239.00
f?4: "Give me lots of economical
computing power. "
Solution:
THE BCC11 BASIC
SYSTEM/CONTROLLER
The Z8 BASIC System/Controller is
nearly identical to the FORTH
System/Controller but contains a tiny
BASIC interpreter, up to 6K bytes of
RAM and EPROM, an RS-232 serial
port with switch selectable baud rates,
and two parallel ports. Add a power
supply and terminal to start program-
ming in BASIC or machine language.
Programs can be transferred to 2732
EPROMS with the optional EPROM
programmer for auto-start applications.
It can also use any of the expansion
boards mentioned under the Z8
FORTH System/Controller.
BCC11 . . .$149.00
Additional information on peripheral
boards and OEM pricing is available.
Order Toll Free
18006353355
In Connecticut call 1 871 6170
For a System Controller suited to
your needs, give us a call.
MICROMINT, INC.
25 Terrace Drive
Vernon, CT 06066
Merry Christmas from Computer Connection
We'll Ship Blue Label FREE
* You pay for Ground shipping and we'll ship Blue Label FREE
for all orders placed by December 20th
PRINTERS
STAR MICRONICS
SG-10,120cps,2Kbuffer $ 219
SG-15, 120cps,2Kbuffer 375
SD-10, 160 cps, 10" carriage 359
SD-15, 160cps,Corr.Qual 469
SR-10, 200 cps, 10" carriage 499
SR-15,200cps,w/tractor 599
SB-10Draft&NLQ24wireprinthead . 625
OKIDATA
ML182P120cps We
ML182 IBM Graphics Gomp Will
ML182S10"Carriage Beat
ML192P, 160cps all
ML192IBMGraphicsComp . . . . Pricing
ML192S, 160cps on
ML193P, 160cps Oki
ML193IBMGraphicsComp . . . Printers
ML193S, 160 cps with
ML84P, 200 cps or
ML84 IBM without
ML84S,200cps IBM
Okimate 20 Rom
EPSON
LX80, 100 cps, 10" carriage Call
FX80 + , 160 cps, 10" carriage Us
RX100, 100cps, 15" carriage First
FX100 + ,160cps,15"carriage For
LQ1500 Draft NLQ Lowest
SQ2000, All New Prices
"We Are An Authorized Dealer
BROTHER
HR-25 $ 422
HR-35 599
DYNAX
DX15XL,20cps By Brother $ 329
DH-45 Dual Head, LQ& Dot Matrix.. 899
JUKI
6100, L.Q. 18cpsw/proportionalspc.$ 359
6300 L.Q. 40 cps 675
TOSHIBA
P1340P $ 525
P1340S 525
P351 P/S, Fasterand More Versatile 1145
PANASONIC
1091 w/Tractor,120cps,1yr.war. . .$ 239
1092, 10" carriage, 180 cps 375
1093, 15" carriage, 160 cps 535
HARD DISK DRIVES
MICRO-SCI
10 Meg w/cont. formatted for IBM . . . .$ 399
20 Meg w/cont. formatted for IBM ... . 599
ALPHA OMEGA
10Megw/ControllerCard $499
20Megw/ControllerCard 629
30Megw/ControllerCard 999
20MegforAT 550
33 Meg for AT 775
DISK DRIVES
TANOON
TM100-2forlBMPC $ 85
MITSUBISHI
'/*Ht.360K $ 95
TEAC
55B Double Sided 360K $ 84
Quad Density 159
Drives For Apple & Franklin
MICRO-SCI
A-2 $ 149
A.5Cforllcw/cable 155
A3 'A height for ME 155
Controller Add 55
PRINTER
ACCESSORIES
ORANGE MICRO
Grappler + $ 75
Buffered Grappler + ,16Kexp.64K . 150
TOSHIBA
BI-DirectionalTrac. 1351/351 . . .$ 149/155
Font Disk for Down loading P1351 . . 50
MICROTEK
Dumpling GX (same as Grappler +) $ 65
DumplingGXw/16Kbuffer 119
Dumpling GXw/32K buffer 129
Additional Buffering 16K 7
FOURTH DIMENSION
Par. Card & Cable for Apple $ 49
OKIDATA
Plug and Play for IBM $ 49
Tractorfor182&192 39
JUKI
Bi-Direc.Tractorfor6100/6300 .$ 115/125
Serial Interface 65
CABLES
IBMPCtoParallelPrinter $ 14
DISPLAY MONITORS
QUADRAM
AmberchromelBMcompatible . . . .$ 169
AMDEK
V300G $ 115
V300A 119
V310AforlBMPC 149
Color300 199
Color 500 Color Composite 319
Color600 RGB Hi-Res 399
Color 710 Super Hi-Res 545
TAXAN
IBM Green Monochrome#121 $ 129
IBMAmberMonochrome#122 139
RGBIBMw/Cable#420 389
RGBSuperHi-Res.#640SesfBuy . . 489
RGB/Comp. Med. Res. #210 245
PRINCETON GRAPHICS
HX-12 for use with IBM PC $ 435
Max12EAmberforlBM 169
SR12SuperHi-Res 575
Scan Doubler . . . 185
QUIMAX
SerialCable 16
Centronics M/M or IWF 18
PX-4,RGBHi-Resw/Gr.TextMode .$ 410
DM-14MonochromeforlBM ...... 150
STOCKING STUFFERS! !
Order NOW for Christmas
RF MODULATOR
SMT 64K/80 COL.
$14
$49
IBM PRINTER CABLE
DYNAX DX15XL
$14
• LQ, 20 cps $329
AST 6-PAK W/64K
STAR MICRONICS
$210
• SG10, 120 cps $219
ANCHOR MARK XII
TEAC 55B
$209
• 1/2 Height, D/D $84
IBM DOS 3.1
COMPAQ
$59
• Port., 2 Or. & 256K $1899
"THE COMPANY THAT DELI VERS "
IBM
IBM Dos 3.1
.$ 59
VUTEK (2 yr. war.)
w/Par. & Ser. Ports, 2 Yr. War $ 1 89
Color Card (Here. comp.)w/Para. . . . 150
Monographic Card (Here, comp.) . . . 275
AST RESEARCH
Six Pak + W/64K & Sidekick $ 225
Six Pak + W/384K& Sidekick 255
Game Port 49
KEYTRONICS
KB5151 $ 175
MICROTEK
Monochrome Text Par. &Ser $ 169
Color Graphics Card 165
TECHMAR
Graphics Master $ 449
256K Memory Upgrade 99
APPLE & FRANKLIN ACCESSORIES
ADVANCED LOGIC SYSTEMS
ZEngine2.2 $ 115
APPLE
Super Serial Card $ 139
SMT
64K, 80 col. Card, 3 yr. war $ 49
99 MICRO-SCI
139 64K, 80 Col. Card $ 79
PARADISE
ModularGraphicsCard $ 259
ModuleA 75
Module B256KW/C&C 120
5-Paksameas6-Pak-Ser. Port 175
64K MEMORY UPGRADE
64K (9 chips) 200ns S 150ns $8.00
HEXACE TECHNOLOGIES
Hi-Res Color Card for PC, XT, AT . . .$ 110
QUADRAM
Quad Color 1 Board
Exp. Quadboard w/64K & Game Port
Quadlink 3000 Run Apple sft on IBM
179
199
329
ACCESSORIES
Kensington System Saver . .
Masterpiece Control Unit . . .
MICROTEK
Serial Interface
MICROMAX
Viewmax 128K extended 80 col. card
forApplellEw/64K $
80col.cardforApplell&ll+
69
$ 75
PERSONAL SYSTEMS
APPLE
Professional Sys. incl: Apple HE W/128K &
80 col., tilt mon„ duodisk w/con't kit . $1339
Apple He Lightweight Portable 789
IBM
IBMPC64K, 1 Drive $1460"
IBMPC,2Drivesw/256K 1535'
IBM XT, 10Meg.,360KDr.w/256K . 2399*
IBMXTBarew/256K&IBMFIoppy. 1899*
Call About All "AT" Systems
'Call for current IBM prices
SANYO
MBC550-2w/1,320KDrive&sftwr. .$ 750
MBC 555-2 w/2, 320K Drives &
more software 899
775Portable 1795
Serial Port for Sanyo 65
COMPAQ
256K, w/2 -320K Drives $1899
DeskTop Model 1 1649
DeskTopModel2 1925
DeskTop Model3 Call
DeskTopModeU Call
We have "286" Ports. & D.P. in stock
WYSE
1100-1 incl. 256K w/two 360K Drives, 1 par
&2ser. ports $1399
1100-2 incl. 10 meg, 1 floppy. 256K, 1 par. &
2 ser. ports 2599
*Wyse Monitors & Exp. Chasis Available
SOFTWARE
LOTUS DEVELOPMENT CORP.
Lotus1-2-3 $ 289
Symphony 420
ASHTON TATE
DBase II $ 299
DBase III 389
PRINTER SWITCH BOX
EXPONENT
Centronics Two Switch $ 60
Centronics FourSwitch 85
Serial Two Switch 45
Serial FourSwitch 69
MODEMS
ANCHOR
Mark XII $ 209
VolksmodemXIl 179
Express 1200 265
HAYES MICRO
300 Baud Smart Modem $ 149
1200 Baud Smart Modem 379
1200BforlBMPCw/SMII 375
2400 Baud Modem 645
Micro Modem HE 149
Chronograph 189
300ForApplellcw/Sftwr Call
DISKETTES
PC DISKETTES
SgUDbl. (Box of 10) $ 13
Dbl./Dbl.(Boxof10) 15
COMPUTER CONNECTION
Dbl./Dbl.{Boxof 10) $ 16
Sgl./Dbl.w/DiskContainer(10) 15
Dbl./Dbl. w/Disk Container 17
Bulk 50 & Up — Dbl./Dbl 1 .35 ea.
We Stock What We Sell! !
IF YOU SEE IT ADVERTISED FOR LESS, CALL
COMPUTER CONNECTION FIRST FOR LOWEST QUOTE!
MAIL ORDER:
1 71 21 S. Central Avenue, Unit L
Carson. California 90746
i — ;
NO SURCHARGE FOR CREDTT CARDS
We accept VISA, MasterCard, COD
[w/deposit], Certified Checks or
Wire Transfers. Minimum Shipping
Charge S4.00. Some items subject
to back order. California Res. add
6Vi% Sales Tax. All returns are
subject to a 1 5 % restocking charge
and must be authorized by store
manager within 10 days. Prices
subject to change without notice.
This Ad supersedes all others.
ORDER LINE
[800] 732-0304
[Outside California!
[213] 635-2BD9
[Inside California]
Mon.-Fri. 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
[213] S35-5065
Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Inquiry 73
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 453
TM
Super Disk
Diskettes
Now... Diskettes you can
swear by, not swear at.
Lucky for you, the diskette buyer, there are many diskette
brands to choose from. Some brands are good, some not
as good, and some you wouldn't think of trusting with even
one byte of your valuable data. Sadly, some manufacturers
have put their profit motive ahead of creating quality
products. This has resulted in an abundance of low quality
but rather expensive diskettes in the marketplace.
A NEW COMPANY WAS NEEDED AND STARTED
Fortunately, other people in the diskette industry recognized
that making ultra-high quality diskettes required the best and
newest manufacturing equipment as well as the best people
to operate this equipment. Since most manufacturers seemed
satisfied to give you only the everyday quality now available,
an assemblage of quality conscious individuals decided to
start a new company to give you a new and better diskette.
They called this product the Super Disk diskette, and you're
going to love them. Now you have a product you can swear by,
not swear at.
HOWTHEY MADE THE BEST DISKETTES EVEN BETTER
The management of Super Disk diskettes then hired all the
top brains in the diskette industry to make the Super Disk
product. Then these top bananas (sometimes called floppy
freaks) created a new standard of diskette quality and
reliability. To learn the "manufacturing secrets" of the top
diskette makers, they've also hired the remaining "magnetic
media moguls" from competitors around the world. Then all
these world class, top-dollar engineers, physicists, research
scientists and production experts (if they've missed you, send
in your resume to Super Disk) were given one directive.. .to
pool all their manufacturing know-how and create a new,
better diskette.
HOW SUPER DISK DISKETTES ARE MANUFACTURED
The Super Disk crew then assembled the newest, totally
quality monitored, automated production line in the industry.
Since the manufacturing equipment at Super Disk is new, it's
easy for Super Disk to consistently make better diskettes.
You can always be assured of ultra-tight tolerances and
superb dependability when you use Super Disk diskettes. If
all this manufacturing mumbo-jumbo doesn't impress you,
we're sure that at least one of these other benefits from using
Super Disk diskettes will:
1 . TOTAL SURFACE TESTING - Foe maximum reliability, and to lessen the likelihood of
disk errors, all diskettes must be totally surface tested At Super Disk, each diskette is
1 00% surface tested. Super Disk is so picky in their testing, they even test the tracks that
are in between the regular tracks.
2. COMPLETE LINE OF PRODUCTS - For a diskette to be useful to you and your
computer, it must be compatable physically- Super Disk has an entire line of 5V«-inch
diskettes for your computer,
3. SPECIALLY LUBRICATED DISK • Super Disk uses a special oxide lubricant which is
added to the base media in the production of their diskettes. This gives you a better disk
drive head to media contact and longer head and disk life.
4. HIGH TEMPERATURE/LOW-MARRING JACKET • A unique high temperature and
low-marring vinyl jacket allows use of their product where other diskettes won't work. This
special jacket is more rigid than other diskettes and helps eliminate dust on the jacket,
5. REINFORCED HUB RINGS- Standard on all Super Disk mini-disks, to strengthen the
center hub hole. This increases the life of the disk to save you money and increase overall
diskette reliability.
6. DISK DURABILITY- Super Disk diskettes will beat all industry standards for reliability
since they will give you more than 75% of the original signal amplitude remaining even
after an average (Weibul B-50) of 30 million passes. They are compatible with all industry
specifications as established by ANSI, ECMA. ISO, IBM and JIS.
7. CUSTOMER ORIENTED PACKAGING - All Super Disk disks are packaged 1 disks to
a carton and 1 cartons to a case. The economy bulk pack is packaged 1 00 disks to a case
without envelopes or labels.
8. LIFETIME WARRANTY - If all else fails, remember, all disks made by Super Disk Inc.,
have a lifetime warranty. If any Super Disk diskette fails to meet factory specifications.
Super Disk Inc. will replace them under the terms of the Super Disk warranty,
9. SUPERB VALUE - With Super Disk's automated production line, high-quality, error-
free disks are yours without the high cost.
Order toll free 800-USA-DISK
NOW.. . NAME BRANDQUALITYATSUPERCE PRICES
Now, you can buy Super Disk brand diskettes directly from Communi-
cations Electronics at prices less than "unbranded" generic diskettes.
Your data is valuable, so why take chances using a diskette that could
be so unreliable that the manufacturer refuses to put their name on it.
To save you even more, we also offer Super Disk bulk product where
1 00 diskettes are packed in the same box without envelopes or labels.
Since we save packaging costs, these savings are passed on to you.
Diskette envelopes are also available from us. These super strong and
.tear resistant envelopes are only 8<t each. Use order # EV-5 and
specify the quantity of 5'U" diskette envelopes that you want.
390 per disk
Quantity One
Our diskettes are packed 1 disks to a carton and 1 cartons to a case.
The economy bulk pack is packaged 100 disks to a case without
envelopes or labels. For best value, you should order in increments of
100 diskettes. Almost all diskettes are immediately available from
Super Disk. With our efficient warehouse facilities, your order is
normally shipped in less than a day.
SAVE ON SUPER DISK - DISKETTES
Product Description
5',
5%
5V<
5%
5'.
5V<
5'.
Super Disk
Part#
price
per disc (S)
6431 -BA
0.54
6437- BA
0.39
6481 -BA
0.58
6487-BA
0.43
6491 -BA
0.64
6497-BA
0.49
6501 -BA
1.49
SSSD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring
Same as above, but bulk pack w/o envelope
SSDD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring
Same as above, but bulk pack w/o envelope
DSDD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring
Same as above, but bulk pack w/o envelope
DSQD Soft Sector w/Hub Ring (96 TPI)
SSSD = Single Sided Single Density; SSDD = Single Sided Double Density;
DSDD = Double Sided Double Density; DSOD = Double Sided Quad Density.
TPI = Tracks per inch.
BUY YOUR DISKETTES FROM CE WITH CONFIDENCE
To get the fastest delivery of your diskettes, phone your order directly to
our order desk and charge it to your credit card. Written purchase
orders are accepted from approved government agencies and most
well rated firms at a 10% surcharge for net 10 billing. For maximum
savings, your order should be prepaid. All sales are subject to
availability, acceptance and verification. All sales are final. All prices
are in U.S. dollars. Prices, terms and specifications are subject to
change without notice. Out of stock items may be placed on backorder
or substituted for equivalent product unless we are instructed
differently. A $5.00 additional handling fee will be charged for all
orders with a merchandise total under $50.00. All shipments are
F.O.B. CE warehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan. COD terms are available,
in U.S. UPS areas for $5.00 extra, and are payable with cash or
certified check. Michigan residents add 4% sales tax.
For shipping charges add $6.00 per 100 diskettes and/or any
fraction of 100 5'/4-inch diskettes for U.P.S. ground shipping and
handling in the continental U.S. For 1 ,000 or more disks shipped to the
continental U.S., shipping charges are $3.00 per hundred diskettes.
UPS 2nd day air rates are three times continental U.S. rates. For
Canada, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, or APO/FPOdelivery, shipping is
three times the continental U.S. rate.
Mail orders to: Communications Electronics Inc., Box
1 045, Ann Arbor, Michigan 481 06-1 045 U.S.A. If you have a
Visa or Master Card, you may call and place a credit card
order. Order toll-free in the U.S. Dial 800-USA-DISK. In
Canada, order toll-free by calling 800-CA1-DISK. If you are
outside the U.S. or in Michigan dial 313-973-8888. Telex
anytime 8 1 0-223-2422. Order your Super Disk diskettes now.
Copyright © 1986 Communications Electronics Inc.
Ad #102585-BA
Now
390
a disk
454 B YTE • DECEMBER
Inquiry 65
COMPUTER
PRODUCTS.
Inc.
ORDER TOLL FREE
(800)
538-8800
(CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)
(800)
848-8008
I MasterCard]
STATIC RAMS
2101
250 I 4
450u
1 10
1102
Mil
450u
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21.05
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1.10
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120n
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115
DYNAMIC RAMS
THS4027
4Kll
250n
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4Kl1
300n
1.16
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550
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74LSOO
74UH
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74L8266
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7418273
1.46
74L803
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74UI33
58
74LI276
3.30
741104
74LMS
73
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74UI1I
74L8137
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74LS270
74U2I0
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74U0I
77
74LII30
64
74LS283
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741101
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74LS139
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7418280
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741810
24
74LII45
1.15
7418293
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74 LSI!
14
74LII47
2.46
74U206
91
74LII2
34
7411141
1.30
74LI20I
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74LS13
44
7418151
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7418299
1.70
741114
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74L81S3
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7418323
3.46
74L815
34
74L8I54
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74U324
1.70
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74U362
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7418156
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7418353
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741112
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74L8157
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74LS363
1.30
74LII0
21
7413158
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74L8364
1.00
74U17
21
7118160
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7418366
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74U2I
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74L8161
61
7418366
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71LS30
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74LI32
741833
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74L8163
7418161
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7418368
74LI373
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1.36
74U37
34
74L8I65
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74LI374
1.35
741838
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74LS166
1 90
74L1377
1.35
74L810
24
7418168
1.70
74U37I
111
74U42
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74L8169
1.70
71LS378
1.30
74U47
74
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1.46
74L8385
1.16
74U4I
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74UI73
61
74U3I0
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74U4I
74
74UI74
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1418390
1.16
74L85I
24
74L8I7S
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74LI303
1.16
74LI54
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71LSI81
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74U3I6
1.16
74L855
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7418180
1.00
74U300
1.46
741863
120
7418190
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7418124
2.00
74LS73
31
7413191
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74L8447
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74L374
34
7418192
.71
74114(0
ISO
74U7S
31
71LS193
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74U824
3.06
74LI76
31
7418191
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74LS640
2.16
74LI7I
41
7113195
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74LS645
2.15
74UI3
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74L8196
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74LS668
1.08
711865
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7418197
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74L8669
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7413221
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74L8I70
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74LI00
54
74L1240
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74LS671
160
74UI1
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7418241
96
74L8682
3.16
74UI2
54
74LS242
98
74L3583
3.15
741813
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7411243
91
74L8681
3.16
74L895
74
7418214
1.26
71L8685
3.16
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7418245
1.46
71LS588
2.35
74LII07
31
7418247
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74LIM0
3.15
74LSI09
31
74LS218
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74U7I3
23.05
74LIII2
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74LS249
91
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74L8I13
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7418251
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1.45
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74L5253
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7418257
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1.46
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7418258
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25182521
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74LS124 2.85
71LS259
2.70
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420
We will try to BEAT
All Competitor's Prices
CALL for Quote!
8000
0111
0015
0030
111-8010
118-0073
1000*
0006
0006A-2
6000
6007-3 |5 MHU .
1017-2 !i«.ia
1000
. 14.M
. 5.00
. 6.M
. 10.00
20.00
. 3.00
. 4.00
. 11.00
. 24.00
124.05
III 16
10.00
60.00
0283 6 90
1253-6 7 80
0265 4.41
1255-8 4.00
0267 7.00
0257-5 0.00
8100
0131 2 90
1166 IN
0165-2 7.M
1110 6.90
0111 20.00
0106-2 38 90
8200
1212 ....
1203 ....
0208 ....
0212 ....
0214 ....
1218 ...
1224 ,...
1226 ....
1220 ....
1237 ....
•237-6 I4.N
0210 4.41
0241 4.41
0260 IN
1211 3 00
12614 4.46
0250
0250-6 .
0271 . . .
1272...
1274 . . .
1276 . . .
1270 .
0271-6
0212
0203
0204
0200
0207 .
0200
0200
0202
23.00
30.00
2.00
1.75
3.76
1.75
2.20
1.75
1.41
I2.N
5.00
0.00
00.00
10.00
20.00
20.00
1.00
7.N
646
0.41
4.N
6 45
1.46
12.M
44.00
12.00
8300
0103 2.00
0304 I JO
0307 2.00
0300 2.00
0110 3J0
0111 3J0
8700
0741 20.00
0740 10.M
1741 21.00
0716 23.00
80000
0I1M-I
•0111
•0J0
00.00
THIS IS A SAMPLING
ONLY . . . CALL WITH
ALL
YOUR COMPONENT NEEDS.
CRYSTALS
ALL STANDARD VALUES... 1.69
CRYSTAL CLOCK OSC.
ALL STANDARD VALUES... 4.89
DIP SWITCHES
4, 5.6. 7. B, 10 ALL... .79 ei.
ZIF SOCKETS
UiliZIF 4.11
10 III ZIF 4 89
24 pll ZIF 8.10
NpuZIF 0.00
40 pll ZIF 0.00
ORBITAL SYSTEMS:
EXTENDED 80-Column Card
for APPLE lie
• 64Kto 128K Upgrade
• 2-Year Warranty. . . . $69.95
Z-B0 (CP/M) CARD
APPLE II+, HE 1
• Compatible w/all Apple CP/M
• Lifetime Warranty 69.95
MEG-O-RAM
EXPAND DESKTOP
SPACE 1 MEGABYTE
on APPLEWORKS t
APPLE II et $259.°°
APPLE ACCESSORIES
Parallel Printer Cart 49.95
BO-Col. cird for Apple 11+ . . . 1 49.95
80-Col. card lor Appll III . . . 1 29.95
Serial Card (commuilcitlii) . . . 69.95
Cooling Fin 38.95
Power Supply 69.95
Joystick 29.95
Joystick Adapter Apple lie . . . 1 4.95
RF Modulator 13.95
Disk Drive Full Height 169.95
Disk Drive ft Holght 1 69.95
Controller Card 49.95
Apple Paddles 5.95
IBKCird 39.95
• BULK i
• DISKETTES *
SS/DD 25/$17.25
DS/DD 25/$19.75
AT* disks .... 25/S50.00
3W disks.... 25/$50.00
ALL DISKETTES HAVE
A FULL 1-YEAR WARRANTY
UV ERASERS
QUV-T8/1 $40.95
ECONOMY Modal
MEMORY
EXPANSION KIT
• Eratas 15 EPROMS In 20 minutes
a Plastic Enclosure
DOKAY carries the Full Una
ipt LOGICAL DEVICES, Inc.
41256 150ns
$2.89 each!
APPLE 1 or IBM* JOYSTICK
»29. 95
-;.■ MERCURY MODEMS
For APPLE* and IBM*
HAYES COMPATIBLE MODEM 195.00
— FULL ONE YEAR WARRANTY -
• IBM* ACCESSORIES •
8087-3 |5MHz) 124.95
8087-2 (8 MHz) 144.95
TEAC 5SB 99.95
TAN DON TM 100-2 129.95
1 35W XT POWER SUPPLY . . 99.95
51 ZK RAM MEMORY BOARD . . 1 39.95
MULTIFUNCTION BOARD
Witt 3B4K RAM 179.95
MACINTOSH' UPGRADE
(Parts onlyl
128K to 512K 50.00
Consists of: 1 6 41256 150ns
1 74F253
17 16 Pin Sockets
Roalitori and Cipicllon ALSO INCLUDED
t A TRADEMARK OF APPLE COMPUTER
t A TRADEMARK OF IBM CORPORATION
CALL or WRITE
for our
FULL CATALOG
TERMS: Minimum order $1 0.00
For shipping and handling include
$2.50 for UPS ground or $3.50 for
UPS Blue (air) For each additional
air pound, add $1.00 California
residents must include 6% sales
tax; LA., S.F..S. Cruz, 4 S Mateo
counties include 6 5% sales tax
and Santa Clara include 7% sales
tax All items subject to availability
and prices subject to change
Typographical errors are not our
responsibility.
No additional charge for Master-
card or Visa We reserve the right
to substitute manufacturers and
to limit Quantities.
HOURS: Mor-
7 30 to b OU
10 0010 3 00
VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE
2100 De L.i Cruz Blvr!
Santa Clara CA 95050
{ 408 1 988-0697
ALL MERCHANDISE IS
100% GUARANTEED
Inquiry 121
Telex:
756440 f
Dc
>KavI
aaBBBBBBBBBBBM_ jm
S3SXi^bm^S
DECEMBER
I98T -BYTE 457
Incredible value!
Nashua,
Diskettes
85
ea.
5W SSDD
Qty 50 51/," DSDD
97
c
Qty 50
ea.
These are poly-bagged diskettes packaged with Tyvek sleeves,
reinforced hubs user identification labels and write-protect tabs
NASHUA Corporation is a half-billion dollar corporation and a
recognized leader in magnetic media
SOFT SECTOR ONLY! Sold in multiples of 50 only!
for orders only: information*
1-800-621-6827 inquiries:
(In Illinois 1-312-256-7140) 1-312-256-7140
HOURS 8AM-5PM Central Time, Monday-Friday
WE WILL BEAT ANY NATIONALLY ADVERTISED PRICE
ON THE SAME PRODUCTS AND QUANTITIES!
DISK WORLD!. Inc.
629 Green Bay Road • Wilmette, Illinois 60091
DISK
WORLD!
NASHUA
Authorised Distributor MAGNETIC
ATHANA
DISKETTES
The great unknown!
7QC -.„ oc
Qty 50
5 '/a' DSDD
You've used these diskettes hundreds of
times, as copy-protected originals on some of
the most popular software packages. They're
packed in poly-bags of 25 with Tyvek sleeves,
reinforced hubs, user identification labels and
write-protect tabs.
■Lim' , -i , ,v;..v5sa
SOFT SECTOR ONLY! Sold in multiples
of 50 only.
for orders only: information &
1-800-621-6827 inquiries:
(In Illinois 1-312-256-7140) 1-312-256-7140
HOURS 8AM-5PM Central Time. Monday-Friday
WE WILL BEAT ANY NATIONALLY ADVERTISED PRICE
ON THE SAME PRODUCTS AND QUANTITIES!
DISK WORLD!, Inc.
629 Green Bay Road • Wilmette. Illinois 60091
DISK
WORLD!
ATHANA
Authorized Distributor MAGNETIC
DISKETTE
STORAGE CASES
AMARAY MEDIA-MATE 50: A REVOLUTION
^* IN DISKETTE STORAGE
^^P Every once in a while, someone takes the
K|^ fr simple and makes it elegant 1 This unit holds
Mt 50 5'/«" diskettes, has grooves for easy
^^ f slacking, inside nipples to keep diskettes
from slipping and severa 1 other features. We
like it' CO KG • $2 00
OJ.Ui) ea Shpng
DISKETTE 70 STORAGE: STILL A GREAT BUY.
^^F Dust-free storage for 70 5V diskettes
l^HK Six dividers included An excellent value.
V\l[ ' VDISK CADDIES $9-"5 Shpng
V ^ s\^ J ^ The original flip up holder toi 10 5'*
■"X^^diskettes Beige or grey only C-t CC
<mmF • 20C Shpng
for orders only: information &
1-800-621-6827 inquiries:
(In Illinois 1-312-256-7140) 1-312-256-7140
HOURS 8AM-5PM Central Time, Monday-Friday
WE WILL BEAT ANY NATIONALLY ADVERTISED PRICE
ON THE SAME PRODUCTS AND QUANTITIES!
DISK WORLD!, Inc.
629 Green Bay Road • Wilmette, Illinois 60091
DISK
WORLD!
FANTASTIC LOW PRICES ON
™ BASF n
) QUALIMETRIC (
DISKETTES!
LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Buy in bulk and save 150 to the carton with envelopes, write-
protect tabs and user ID labels Boxed product is the same except
in cardboard boxes ot 10.
Qty 50 Qlv 150
5 25" SSDD .83 ea, 80 ea
5 25" DSDD 94 ea. 92 ea
5 25-DSDD-HD 2 13ea N/A
5 25"SSDD-96TPI 94 ea N/A
5 25"DSDD-96TPI 1 06 ea N/A
3 50SSDD 135TPI 1 84 ea 1 68 ea
3 50DSDD 135TPI 2 40 ea 2 28 ea
NOTE 3 50" diskettes in Quantity 50 are packed in plastic
library cases That's why they seem to be a better buy But there
are only 5 diskettes to a case so the bulk diskettes are really a
better deal, unless you like expensive little library cases
for orders only: information &
1-800-621-6827 inquiries:
(In Illinois 1-312-256-7140) 1-312-256-7140
HOURS 8AM-5PM Central Time Monday-Friday
WE WILL BEAT ANY NATIONALLY ADVERTISED PRICE
ON THE SAME PRODUCTS AND QUANTITIES!
fllQIf Authorized Reseller _
Wlvl* Information Processing !• RAQJ-
WORLD! —
DISK WORLD!
Ordering & Shipping
Instructions
Shipping: 5V & 3 5" DISKETTES— Add $3 00 per each 100 or
fewer diskettes Other Items: Add shipping charges as shown in
addition to other shipping charges Payment: VISA and MASTER-
CARD accepted COD Orders: Add additional $5 OOSpecial Han-
dling charge AP0, FP0, AK. HI S PR Orders: Include shipping
charges as shown and additional 5% ot total order amount to
cover PAL and insurance Taxes: Illinois residents only, add 7%
sates tax
Prices subiect to change without notice
This ad supercedes all other ads
Not responsible for typographical errors
minimum total order $35 00
for orders only: information &
1-800-621-6827 inquiries:
(In Illinois 1-312-256-7140) 1-312-256-7140
HOURS 8AM-5PM Central Time
Monday-Friday
WE WILL BEAT ANY NATIONALLY ADVERTISED PRICE
ON THE SAME PRODUCTS AND QUANTITIES!
DISK WORLD!. Inc.
629 Green Bay Road • Wilmette, Illinois 60091
DISK
WORLD!
PRINTER
RIBBONS:
at
extraordinary
prices!
Brand new ribbons, manufactured to Original Eguipment
Manufacturer's specifications, in housings (Not re-inked or
spools only)
LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Epson MX-70/80 $2.70 ea + 25C Shpng
Epson MX-100 . . $4.08 ea. + 25c Shpng.
Okidata Micro83 . . $1.37 ea. + 250 Shpng.
Okidata Micro84 . $2.98 ea. + 250 Shpng.
for orders only: information &
1-800-621-6827 inquiries:
lln Illinois: 1-312-256-7140) 1-312-256-7140
HOURS 8AM-5PM Central Time, Monday-Friday
WE WILL BEAT ANY NATIONALLY ADVERTISED PRICE
ON THE SAME PRODUCTS AND QUANTITIES!
DISK WORLD!, Inc.
629 Green Bay Road • Wilmette, Illinois 60091
The vah» leader in H UlOft
Computer supplies I ,. irvril _.,
And.cc.s.one. ■ WORLD!
Now, the lowest
prices ever on
3M Scotch
7 DISKETTES
LIFETIME WARRANTY!
The best deal
on 3M diskettes
you've ever seen!
FREE!
FLIP 'N FILE 15
with every order
for 5.25 SSDD and DSDD.
$1.36 ea. 5.25" SSDD with FREE Flip n File 15
5.25" DSDD with FREE Flip 'n File 15. . .$1.67 ea.
MINIMUM ORDER: 50 Diskettes
(Orders less than 50 are $1.39 and $1.70.
respectively)
100% LIFETIME
WARRANTY!
This is a Super Special Promotion. It was
supposed to end May 31, 1985,
But we decided to buy more than 1,000,000
3M diskettes packed in the FREE Flip 'n File
15... and give you the benefits of this terrific
value.
One word of warning: this offer is limited only
to supplies on hand. Once this inventory is gone,
that's it. The prices stay the same. . .but there's
no FREE Flip n File.
The last time we ran an offer like this, every-
thing sold out in about six weeks.
So don't wait. Order now.
Other 3M diskettes
Qty 20 Qty 50
5.25" SSDD-96TPI $2.07 ea. $2.04 ea.
5.25"DSDD-96TPI $2.51 ea. $2 48ea.
5 25"DSDD-HDFORAT $3 18ea $3 14ea.
3 50"SSDD-135TPI(Mac) $2 29ea $2.26 ea
DATA CARTRIDGES
100% certified 3M data cartridges
DC-1000 $12.62 ea.
DC-300XLP $19 38ea
DC-600A $20 61 ea
Sold in cases of 10 only.
Add $5 00 shipping per 10 data cartridges
FIRST TOUCH KEYBOARD STRIP
The best way we've ever seen to avoid static danger
Adheres to the front ledge of your keyboard Overpriced
at $19.95. so we cut the price to $10.95 + $1.50 Ship-
ping.
A VERY SPECIAL OFFER
3M POST-IT NOTES & DISPENSER
Suggested Retail' $20,95 Includes dispenser, 12
pads of 3" x 5" Pest-It notes and Pilot Ball Point Pen
Order it with 50 3M diskettes or 10 data cartridges and
it's only $9.75 + $3 00 Shipping.
DISK
WORLD!
AutnofiMd Distributor
Information Processing
Products
458 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 420
What the world really needs
is a 69 cent
Double Sided, Double Density Diskette
with a LIFETIME WARRANTY!
And DISK WORLD! has it.
Introducing Super Star Diskettes:
the high quality diskette with
the lowest price
and the best LIFETIME WARRANTY!
In the course ol selling more than a million diskettes
every month, we've learned something: higher prices don't
necessarily mean higher quality.
In fact, we've found that a good diskette manufacturer
simply manufactures a good diskette. ..no matter what
they charge for it. (By way of example, consider that none
of the brands that we carry has a return rate of greater than
1/1, 000th of 1 percent!)
In other words, when people buy a more expensive
diskette, they aren't necessarily buying higher quality.
The extra money might be going toward flashier adver-
tising, snazzier packaging or simply higher profits.
But the extra money in a higher price isn't buying better
quality.
All of the good manufacturers put out a good diskette
Period.
How to cut diskette prices
. . .without cutting quality.
Now this discovery posed a dilemma: how to cut the
price of diskettes without lowering the quality.
There are about 85 companies claiming to be "diskette"
manufacturers.
Trouble is. most of them aren't manufacturers.
Rather they are fabricators or marketers, taking other
company's components, possibly doing one or more steps
of the processing themselves and pasting their labels on
the finished product.
The new Eastman Kodak diskettes, for example, are one
of these. So are IBM 5V<" diskettes. Same for DYSAN,
Polaroid and many, many other familiar diskette brand
names. Each of these diskettes is manufactured in whole
or in part by another company!
So, we decided to act just like the big guys. That's how
we would cut diskette prices ..without lowering the
quality.
We would go out and find smaller companies to manu-
facture a diskette to our specifications... specifications
which are higher than most. . and simply create our own
"name brand" diskette.
Name brand diskettes that offered high quality at low
prices.
DISKETTE STORAGE
CASES
DISK CADDIES
The original flip-up holder for
10 514" diskettes. Beige or Grey
only.
$1.65 ea. .20 Shpng.
DISKETTE 70 STORAGE
Dust-free storage for 70 5V*"
diskettes. Six dividers included.
An excellent value.
$9.95 ea. +$3.00 Shpng.
HOURS:
Human: 8AM-6PM Central Time. Monday through Friday
Answering Machine: 6PM-8AM, All Times
MCI MAIL: 24 hours a day.
SUPER |
STAR ■
■diskettes!
5W "
W 5V*"
SSDD
DSDD
.55 ea.
1 .69 ea.
Qty. 50
1 Qty. 50
Super Star diskettes are sold in multiples of 50 only. Diskettes are
shipped with white Tyvec sleeves, reinforced hubs, user ID labels
and write-protect tabs
Boy, did we get lucky. Our Super Star
Diskettes are the same ones you've been
using for years. . .without knowing it.
In our search for the low priced, high quality diskette of
our dreams, we found something even more interesting.
We found that there are several manufacturers who
don't give a hoot about the consumer market for their
diskettes. They don't spend millions of dollars in advertis-
ing trying to get you, the computer user, to use their
diskettes.
Instead, they concentrate their efforts on turning out the
highest quality diskettes they can... because they sell
them to the software publishers, computer manufacturers
and other folks who (in turn) put their name on them . . .and
sell them for much higher prices to you!
After all, when a software publisher or computer manu-
facturer or diskette marketer puts their name on a diskette,
they want it to work time after time, everytime. (Especially
software publishers who have the nasty habit of copy-
protecting their originals!)
HOW TO ORDER:
ORDERS ONLY:
1-800-621-6827
(In Illinois: 1-312-256-7140)
INQUIRIES:
1-312-256-7140
FOR FASTEST SERVICE. USE NO-COST MCI MAIL:
Our address is DISKORDER. It's a FREE MCI MAIL
letter No charge to you. (Situation permitting, we'll
ship these orders in 24 hours or less.)
SHIPPING: 5V«" & 3W DISkETTES— Add $3 00 per each
100 or fewer diskettes. OTHER ITEMS: Add shipping charges
as shown in addition to other shipping charges PAYMENT:
VISA. MASTERCARD and Prepaid orders accepted COO OR-
DERS: Add additional $5.00 special handling charge. APO.
FPO, AK, HI 4 PR ORDERS: Include shipping charges as
shown and additional 5% of total order amount to cover PAL
and insurance We ship only to United States addresses, except
tor those listed above. TAXES: Illinois residents, add 7%
sales tax.
MINIMUM ORDER: $35 .00.
Super Star Diskettes. You already know
how good they are. Now you can buy
them... cheap.
Well, that's the story.
Super Star diskettes don't roll off the boat from Pago-
Pago or emerge from a basement plant |ust east of
Nowhere.
Super Star diskettes have been around for years. . and
you've used them for years as copy-protected software
originals, unprotected originals. Sometimes, depending
on which computer you own, the system master may have
been on a Super Star diskette. And maybe more than once,
you've bought a box or two or more of Super Star diskettes
without knowing it. They |ust had some "big" company's
name on them.
Super Star Diskettes are good. So good that a lot of
major software publishers, computer manufacturers and
other diskette marketers buy them in the tens or hundreds
of thousands.
We buy them in the millions.
And than we sell them to you.
Cheap.
When every little bit counts,
it's Super Star Diskettes.
You've used them a hundred times... under different
names.
Now. you can buy the real McCoy, the same diskette that
major software publishers, computer manufacturers and
diskette marketers buy. and call their own.
We simply charge less.
Super Special!
Order 50 Super Star Diskettes
and we'll be happy to sell you an
Amaray Media-Mate 50 for only
$8.75, shipping included. ..a lot
less than the suggested retail price
of $15.95
£*
DISK WORLD!, INC.
Regular DISK WORLD! price: $9.69 ea.
+ $2.00 Shpng.
The Super Star
LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Super Star Diskettes are unconditionally warranted
against defects in original material and workmanship
so long as owned by the original purchaser. Returns
are simple: just send the defective diskettes with proof
of purchase, postage-paid by you with a short expla-
nation of the problem, and we'll send you the replace-
ments. (Incidentally, coffee stained diskettes and
diskettes with staples driven through them don't
qualify as "defective" )
WE WILL MEET OR BEAT ANY NATIONALLY
ADVERTISED PRICE
ON THE SAME PRODUCTS AND QUANTITIES
SUBJECT TO THE SAME TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
629 Green Bay Road
Wilmette, Illinois 60091
Inquiry 42!
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 459
iiiiii
I
hiViS
to
SKSS PRICE BREAKTHRU
Retail Value $5000
Save up to 60%
ADVANCED XT
ACP PRICE
NOW ONLY!
$ 1695 00
Monochrome Monitor Included
10 Mb Hard Disk
ACP has sold over 2,000 of this system
to major customers including Rockwell
Int'l, Hughes Aircraft and Emulex Corp.
See for yourself why these customers
prefer the Advanced XT over the IBM XT.
BASE SYSTEM CONSISTS OF:
• 256K Expandable to 640K on
the Motherboard.
• (1) 360K DS/DD Floppy Disk
• Serial & Parallel Ports
• Deluxe Keyboard w/LED's
• Mouse with Software
• LCD, Lightpen & RF Ports
• RGB and Mono Ports
• VLSI Circuit Design
• (3) Expansion Slots
• Ergonomic Design & Packaging
• GEM or PC Works Software
• 90 Day Warranty
SYSTEM A
(P/N BDACP100)
Base System (See Left)
$ 995.00
SYSTEM B
(P/N BOACP101)
Base System with additional
Floppy Disk Drive
$1099.00
SYSTEM C
(P/N BDACP102)
Base System w/12" Grn Monitor w/Titt & Swivel
base and additional Floppy Drive
$1295.00
SYSTEM D
(P/N BDACP103)
Base System w/FtGB Color Monitor w/Tilt &
Swivel base and additional Floppy Drive
$1495.00
SYSTEM E
(P/N BOACP104)
Base System v. 10Mb Hard Disk and Green
Monitor with Tilt & Swivel base
$1695.00
SYSTEM F
(P/N BDACP105)
Base System w/10Mb Hard Disk and RGB Color
Monitor with Tilt & Swivel base
$1985.00
ADVANCED XT ACCESSORIES
6 Slot Expansion Chassis
(IBM or IBM Compatible). . $399.00
LCD Display (80x25) for use with
Advanced XT LCD Port 299.00
Monochrome Hi-res text card 69.95
Monochrome IBM style Monitor 99.95
256K Upgrade (Uninstalled) 59.95
PC DOS 2.1 $65.00
GW Basic 75.00
PC Works 1.15 (Touchstone)
Regualr $195 65.00
Archive Tape B.U. (ext. 10Mb) 995.00
Maintenance Manual 50.00
Technical Reference Manual 50.00
SPECIAL SYSTEM w/Printer
1 . System E with Diablo
620 Serial Printer $1995.00
2. System F with Diablo
620 Serial Printer 2285.00
3. Canon LBP-8A1 IBM compatible
laser printer. Purchase for a low
price of $2895.00 and we will give
you System A FREE!
DIABLO 620 DAISYWHEEL PRINTER
The Finest Letter Quality
Printer at a Spectacular Price.
We have sold 1000's. You can
have a spare at this price.
620 Serial List 1495 ACP $395.00
620 API List 1695 ACP 495.00
620 D36 List 1695 ACP 550.00
F-21 Sheet Feeder List 895 ACP 249.00
620 Tractor List 395 ACP 99.00
Cable ACP 29.00
Serial to Par. 64K Buffer. ACP 125.00
Spll BB [K|
10 Mb $399.00
Shugart SA712 w/Controller & Cables.
Ready for Installation in IBM™" PC and
Compatibles. (1 Year Warranty)
Shugart SA712 10Mb HD$229.00
Seagate ST225 20Mb HD 419.00
PC UPGRADE SPECIAL
SET OF (9) 64K RAMS
S^SS
«Q SET OF (9) 256K RAMS
$5.95 4128 PIGGYBACK RAM
1200 Baud Hayes™ Comp. Modem
Short Card by U.S. Robotics with
Telpac I Software.
List $499 ACP. $179.00
Buy (6) S159.00
10Mb Tape Back-up
Archive, #1 in
tape back-up
technology
High speed
10Mb back-up
for only
$995.00
External Box w/Power Supply
Great for adding Hard Disk to your PC.
Same as photo $179.00
-t
DELUXE JOYSTICK
m $11.95
Compatible w/Atari
2600, 400, 800. VIC-20/
64 and Apple. Apple re-
quires optional cable
adaptor. Add $2.95
APPLE DISK DRIVE
$115.00
1 High quality U high
I drive for Apple II, II + .
lie or lie. Apple lie re-
quires optional cable
adaptor. Add $10.00
Jl
iiiiipipii
UPS POWER SUPPLY
Back Up C0-.1 tor your IBM.
UPS-PC 200 Want
UPS-XT 300 WMtt
UPS-AT eoo wans
739 00
A 9 PRINTER SWITCH
An AB Swncn allow* usi ot Iwo printer* will
yuut compuler syslem We Mocr. OW 15 dil
torenl contiguralions
AB Swtlch (Centronics) ii
AB Switch (DB25) i
COLOR VIDEO CARDS
227 00
219 00
am 00
Color PIUS
IBM CoW Caro-
ls M Mono Ca'O w 'parallel
STB Graph** Pha
PvMim MuHMMptty Card
Everei Gfapnica Edge
15 or.
345 00
DRIVE CABINETS
IBM Style Hard Dak *rth power
luppty and fan !<79 00
Dual Hard D»" w/power sup * tan 295 00
Dual 5V Ft* Hetgtt vertical mount 8500
Dual SW" Full Height hon/onlal rnouni 9900
Dud 5V. TrunHrw rWpower >up i Ian 60 00
Single SVi" Full Height wfpowei iup 4 'an 56 00
S.ngie SV Thinhne w'power sup & fan 60 00
PERSYST CARDS
Pvsysl Mono Combo — NEWI
Persysl Colof Combo — NEWI
Persysi Bob BoarD
Persyit Snonport Corn
Petsyst Mini Mono
Periyst • I Time Spectrum w-64K
Parayst '92* Rainbow DEC Card
S335 00
335.00
US C
SPECIAL BUY
•harp 12" Color ROB Monitor
List $499 00 ACP $249.95
MODEM SPECIAL
Hiy.i Smart modem Co mpe tibia
12O0 B ■■(•mat. Sold tor 9399
SI 99.00
INTERSIL STD-BU5 BOARDS
TRANSISTORS/DIODES
ISB333'
ISB3340
ISB3400
ISB3410
ISB3500
ISB3S10
ISB3600
ISB38I0
ISB3700
ISB3711
ISB3720
IS83830
Z80CPU
ZSOUnrv CPU
l*K CMOS RAM
16K Slate RAM
16K CMOS RAM
ZS0 Pio (0 maimg)
Univarsal PIO
Opto Para Input
Floppy Controller
SASI i DMA , WINI Inn
Oplo-lso Input
SPST Relay
OPOTRatay
Amnmete
EPROM Programer
SynclAaync
Unw Sync/Aaync
REMDACS
12 Bit A/D
?20 269 95
CAPACITORS
01uF DISC BYPASS CAPACITOR 100/56 50
1 uF DISC BYPASS CAPACITOR 100/6 50
OluF MONOLITHIC CAPACITOR 100/11 25
I uF MONOLITHIC CAPACITOR 100/14 25
CORCOM EMI FILTER
STO CORCOM 3 ConOuClor FMm S4 50
Una Cord tor above — S too* 1 49
Line Cord 2 Conductor — 6 tool 35
Line Cord 3 Conductor — 6 toot 95
MUFFIN FANS
Over 10,000 In Slock
Torin 3" TA-300 Fan NEW' S9 9
Totm * 88" Muffin Fan NEW 1 12 9
12VDC Fan NEW' 19 S
Finger Guards added 1 4
Powei Corda Adoeo 14
IC SOCKETS
SOLDERTAK t-99
B Pin ST/LP 1 13 !
t4 Pm ST/LP 15
16 Pin ST/IP 17
16 Pin ST/LP 20
20 Pin ST/LP 2S
22 Pin ST/LP 29
24 Pin ST/LP 29
26 Pm ST/LP 39
36 Pin ST/LP 45
40 Pm ST/LP 46
64 Pin ST/LP 3 95
WrftCWRAP [GOLD) 1 99
6 Pm WW/3L S 49
M Pm WW/31 62
te Pm WWI3L 95
IS Pin WW/3L 69
20 Pin WW/3L 99
22 Pm WW/3L I 19
24 Pin WW/3L I 25
28 Pin WW/3L I 49
40 Pin WW/3L 1 66
TEXTOOL/Z1F ZERO INSERTION
16 Pin $6 75 24 Pm 57 85 28 Pin S
(Wa Stock AN Types Ol Sockets)
PN2222A
PN2369A
PN918
2N2216A
2N2219A
2N2905
2N2907
2N3055
2N3565
2N3638
7/11 00 2N3904
5/t 00 2N3906
31100 TIP28A
45 T1P30A
46 tip 31*
45 TIP32A
25 1N4148
69 1N751
4/100 1N4002
4/1 00 1N4004
1 69 MPQ2232
2/1 00
I 1 25
2/1 25
25/1 00
5/1 00
12/1.00
10/1.00
OPTO ISOLATORS
MCT-2
I 59
4N33
MCT«
138
4N35
Mcr-ee
SB
4N37
MCA255
' 55
4N38
4N26
96
TIL117
IW9
SPX33
INM
■■--
;•.;-
Jumbo Rob S 09 S 06
Jumbo Groan 17 15
Jumbo Yellow IT 15
Mini Sue Red 10 09
Mini Sim Green 19 te
Mm. Size Yellow 19 16
SPECIAL VALUES!
MCM68705 EPROM 99 95
611 6/2016-1 50mS 10/19 95
D6-25P Ma* 10/17 50
DB-2SS Female 10/1995
2732A-2 1 0/29 95
2716DC-450mS 10/24 50
2T64-4S0mS 10/29 95
CALL ACP FOR ALL YOUR
VOLUME IC REQUIREMENTS
EDGE CONNECTORS
MM
S 100 ST 93 95 S
S 100 WW 4 75
44 Pin ST 2 75
DSUBMINIATURE
S3 10 S290
DB25S (Female
0B2SP(Male> 240
Hood SI 25 Mtg H/W t 99
OE37S I Female) 95 95
DE37P (Male 1 5 25
Hood $1 75 Mtg H/W t 99
D050S (Female) SB 95
DD50P (Male) 6 00
Hood S3 25 Mtg HAM S 99
(OTHER STYLES IN CATALOG)
CENTRONICS
IDC 36 Pin Male
IOC 36 Pin Female
Sokter 36 Pin Male
Solder 36 Pin Female
(CALL TOLL FREE FOR IOC's)
IDC CONNECTORS
IOC TYPE
ACP NO
NUMBER OF CONTACTS
10 20 26 34 40 50
Solder Header
IDH««S
.79
1.20
1.65
2 10
2.40
3.00
Rt Angle Solder Header
IDHkxSR
79
1.20
1.65
2 10
2.40
300
Ribbon Header Socket
IDS™
.75
96
1 35
1 50
1.86
210
Ribbon Header
IDMxx
-
5 2b
5 95
6 75
7 25
825
Ribbon Edgecard
IDEo
1.70
7 15
? M
I M
3 70
395
Wirewrap Header
lOHxxW
1 BO
2 90
3 75
4.28
4.95
650
Rl Angle W/W Header
lOHxxWR
1.99
3.10
4 10
4.20
4.60
7 15
NOTE To order insert number ol contacts in place ol x* in ACP pari number
ORDER QUANTITY OF 50OC6 (mixed) AND TAKE AN ADDITIONAL 10H OFF.
EPSON PRINTERS
FX-85 (160cpS) $369.00
FX-185 (160cps) 515.00
LX-80 (100 Cps) . 245.00
LQ-1500 (NLQ) 899.00
FX-80+ 339.00
PRINTER SPECIALS
Toshiba 1340 $479.00
Toshiba 341 999.00
Toshiba 351 1175.00
Star SG-10 239.00
Brother 1509 399.00
60000
68000L1D
6600
26.95
as m
37.95
-ii\:S
8237
8237-5
82S1A
8253
USB
■MM
6748
8749
B7S5A
4 0MHI "B" 6 0MHI
260-CTC
160-0 ART
Z90-OMA
290-PIO
Z9O-SKV0
Z80-SIO/1
ZB0-SIO/2
Z60-SIO/9
DISK CONTROLLERS
LIP0765S24 9S
1797
S2I 95
1 6843
128 95
1771
15 95
2791
32 95
8272
1995
1791
22 75
2793
8J ^
1691
I M
i ma
21 50
2795
MM
2143
696
1795
21 SO
2797
27 95
1 9216
■2 M
CRT CONTROLLERS
6845
SI 195
8275
S2850 1
TMS991B
S39 50
88848
17 95
7220
34 95
8360
39 95
6847
1150
5027
17 95
6545
1495
46505
14 75
5037
21 95 1
6002
19 95
MM ■
19 50
NEC7220 Graphics
34 95
UARTSAISARTS
S3 95 I 2350 S 8 96 ] IMCMO
395 8250 10.50 TMS&I
6 75 I IU6402 7 75 I 2651
EPROMS
1702 (imS|
2708 (450nSj
2758 <5V)
2716 (450nSj
2716 ISSOnSI
2516 (5V)
TMS2716
TMS2S32
2732 (4S0nSl
2732 (250nS)
2732(200nSl
S 390
2732A-4 (450nS) S
2732A {250nS)
2732A.2 (2O0nS)
2764 (450nS)
2764 (250nS)
2764 (200nS)
TMS2S64 (450nSj
MCM69764 (450nS)
MCM66766 (350nS) .
27128-3 ISOOnSl
27t28 l?50nS|
98 95 ! 27C64
STATIC RAMS
2101 (450nS|
21L02 |450nS)
2102-t (450nS)
21L02-2 (250nS)
2111 (450nS)
2112(450nS)
21l4(4SOnS)
2114L-4(4S0n)
2114L3|300n)
21UL-2(200n)
2147 |5SnS)
4044-4 (450nS)
4044-3 (MM)
4044-2 (200nS)
UPD410(100nS)
5101 (CMOS)
1 45 679 50
69 8/12 50
79 8/13 30
B9 8/13 90
MK4118 S4 95
TMM2016-2 |200nSl 3 10
TMM20I6-I5(l50n| 3 95
TMM20IO-1 |100nS| 3 00
HM61 16P-4 (200nS) 4 75
HM6i)6P-3I150nS) 3 25
HM6116P-2(120nS) 5 75
HM61 16LP-4 (LP) 380
HM61 16LP-3 (LP) 3 86
HM81 16LP-2 (LP) 3 95
Z6132(3O0nS) 32 95
HM6264P-15(150) 14 95
HM6264LP-15 (LP) 16 95
74S189 l35nS) 1 85
93415 (50nS) 3 95
93425 (50nS) 3 95
DYNAMIC RAMS
4027 ,-jinj, SI 29
t103(300nS| 79
4it6N-2(150nS) 129 8/9 95
4l16N-3(200nS) 1 19 8/ 8.25
41 16N-4 (2S0nS) 99 8/ 5 99
4164N-150 (ISOn) 159 9/1195
4164N-200 (200n) 149 9/10 00
4164N-120(12OnS) 6 25
TMS4164 (150nS) 5 95
TMS4406 l200nS) M 95
TMS44I6 HSOnS) 17 75
412S8-1SO (150n) 6 95
4l256-2O0(20On) 7 95
TMS405O OOOnS) 1 85
TMS4060 pOOnS) I 85
MM5280 (300nS) 1 85
UP0411 (300oSl 1 85
MM5296 l250nS) 1 85
DISK SPECIAL (ibm pc dsddi
79ea
PACKAGE
WOW!
5 ■ . ■ Dwana
VERBATIM 525-01 SS/DO
VERBATIM 550-01 OS/DO (IBM)
MAXELL MO-i SS7DD (All)
MAXELL MD-2 DSVDD (IBM)
MAXELL DISKS lor AT (96tpt)
DYSAN 104/1D SS/DO (AM)
DYSAN 104/2D DS/DD (IBM)
ACP SS/DO (All)
ACP DS/DD (IBM)
■3' .- DISKETTI S
VERBATIM 8 SS/OO
VERBATIM 8 DS/DD
DYSAN 8 SSVDO
DYSAN 8' DS/DD
4000 S 28 4028 S 65
4503
CALL FOR
MC14412 1295
74C00 S 29
74C02 29
74C04 29
74COB 35
74C10 36
74C74 S.65 I 74C161 SI 15 I 74C373 S2.35
74C8S 1 69 74C175 1 15 74C374 2 35
74C90 1 15 74C240 1 89 74C901 59
74C93 1 15 I 74C244 189 I 74C922 4 45
MORE 74C IN STOCK - ALSO W CATALOG
LM108AH
93 95
99
LM301N
35
LM304H
189
LM305H
95
LM306H
4 75
LM307N
40
LM306CN
65
LM310CN
1 65
LM311CN
6?
LM312H
1 76
LM318CN
1 45
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1 56
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1 19
vn»
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56
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95
LM340 (see VRs)
LM348N
(5
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05
LM359
i 75
LM360N
2 95
LM370N
496
LM373N
395
LM376N
3 75
LU377N
i 90
LM360CN
85
LM380N
105
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159
LM3B2N
136
LM383N
195
LM364N
1 75
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89
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1 29
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t 15
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M
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48
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s 1 -.
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285
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35
■.£5':ir
65
N65&B
NES61
23 50
NE564
286
LM565
96
: IMM
1 45
Lt9MT
85
NEL'C
385
NES71
290
NE590 1
NE592
LM709N
LM709H
LM710
LM711
LM715
LM723M
LM723H
LM733
LM730
LM741CN
LM741H
LM741N
LM747
LM748
LM1014
LM1303
LM13I0
MC1330
MC1349
MC1350
MC1366
MC1372
LM1812
LM1830
LM1871
LM1872
LM1877
LM1869
LM1696
ULN2001
ULN2O03
XR2208
XH2207
XR2208
XRZ211
LM2977P
LM2878P
LM2900
LU2901
LM2903
LM2907
LM2917
LM3900
LM3905
LM3909
LU3914
LM3015
LM3918
MC4024
MC4044
RC4131
RC4136
RC4151
CA3023
CA3039
CA3046
CA3069
CA308O
CA3086
CA3060
CA3081
CA3062
CA3083
CA3066
CA3089
CA3096
CA3130
CA3140
VOLTAGE REGULATORS
7805T Alan
8. 12. 15. 24V
7BL06. 12. 15V
78M06C
78MCV79MG
78HOSr(C
7805r! Also
12. 15. 24V
7905T Also
8 12 15, 24V
.69
SPECIAL PURPOSE CHIPS
BR 1941
34702
5018
8116
5307
MC4024
8038
DATA ACQUISITION
ADC0817
S9 75
DAC0800
4 75
DAC0808
2 85
DAC1020
795
DAC1022
585
LF353N
1 99
EXPANSION MEMORY
64K UPGRADE (Set of 9) $4.95
256K RAMS (Set of 9) $26.95
CABLES/ACCESSORIES
IBM PARALLEL (Shielded) S29 95
IBM SERIAL (Shielded) 24 95
KEYBOARD EXTENSION 9 95
RS232 GENDER CHANGER Mole Male 14 95
RS232 GENDER CHANGER Female-Female M 95
NULL MODEM ADAPTOR 14 96
DISK DRIVE SPECIALS
Toshiba ND04D DS/DD IBM $89.50
Toshiba N004C-G for "AT" 99.50
Toshiba ND08DE-G 1 2Mb lor "AT"149.50
ALL WITH MOUNTING KIT
TOLL FREE
800-854-8230
Calif. Residents
714-558-8813
Inquiry 1 1
OUR
POLICY
•NO surcharge for VISA or Mastercard.
•NO sales tax. *AII shipments Insured.
•Your card is Not charged until we ship.
•Same day FEDEX shipment is available.
• Volume purchasing agreements available.
•Government agencies, corporate and
Institutional PO's accepted.
•Orders subject to availability.
•All items have manufacturer warranty.
Some warranties up to 5 years.
• Pricing subject to change w/o notice.
• Returns or cancellations may be subject
to restocking fee.
•ACP Retail Store pricing may vary.
•We are not responsible for typos.
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Mail
Ul
Qfce^
flfitaik
Box
Irvirieu V/iV2Zll
HIS,
IDE
E^d
Saijti_Ai J j J _Ci\
9^70
:
Polaroid/Pferfect
5 1 /4" Double Density
As Low As:
*A turn of the dial
displays your diskettes
in this sturdy
plastic case
69$
Your Benefits From Polaroid's Superior Quality:
All disks are soft sectored in packages of 10 with reinforcing
hub rings, write protect tabs, and labels
Available in soft cardboard boxes or plastic Dial N File
Free data recovery service
Exceeds all industry standards
Multi-million piece "Truck-Load" purchase for absolute lowest
prices - limited quantity, so hurry
Unconditional 20 year warranty
The incredible savings offered by Priority One settles the
Today, the biggest threat to your data is you. Accidents will happen,
and before Polaroid came along, they usually resulted in complete
data loss.
Polaroid diskettes cannot prevent accidents, but with their free data
recovery service, they will prevent loss of data. Simply return your
damaged diskette to Polaroid's Data Recovery Center.and they will re-
cover all possible data, tell you what blocks, if any, could not be
recovered, and return a new disk to you.
issue of who gives the best value for your diskette dollar
5 1 /4" Double Density 48 TPI
Double Sided for PC's & Compatibles — Single Sided for Apple & Atari
Part Number
Description
Retail
PRICE PER BOX OF 10 DISKETTES
5-20 25-85
100 or More
BXP0L522DF Double Sided in Dial N File $51.00 $1 3.00 $1 1. OO $8.90
BXP0L512 Single Sided $35.00 $1 OmOO $ 8.40 $6.90
BXP0L5120F Single Sided in Dial N File $41.00 $1 2.00 $1 0.00 $7.90
8" Double Density
Pirt Number Retail 5 ■ 20 25+
SINGLE SIDED:
8XP0L812 $4500 $15 $10
DOUBLE SIDED:
BXP0L822 $55.00 $20 $15
I DltktHlt mlUblt »l| In mitdlrt psclijlng
ALL PBICES ARE PER BOX OF 10 DISKETTES. MINIMUM ORDER IS 5 BOXES: LARGER ORDERS MUST BE IN MULTIPLES OF 5.
PRIORITY
ELECTRONICS
®
IRVINE
18241 Mc Durmott,
Irvine, CA 92714
(714)660-1411
Mail Your Order To:
21622 Plummer St., Chatsworth, CA 9131 1-4194
RETAIL (616)709-5464 INDUSTRIAL: (618)709-5111
SAN JOSE
452 W. Trimble Rd.,
San Jose, CA 95131
(406)946-7010
MINIMUM PREPAID ORDER 5 BOXES. Terms U.S. VISA, MC, BAC, Check. Money Order.
U.S. Funds ONLY. CA residents add 6%. 6Va%, or 7% Sales Tax. depending on your local
rates. All prices listed are per box of 1 diskettes. UPS shipping charge is $4.00 for first 1
boxes ( 1 00 diskettes), $2.00 for each additional order of 5 boxes. Credit card orders will be
charged appropnte freight. Please include your phone number with your order. Prices good
through December 1 985, or as long as supplies last We are not responsible for typograph-
ical errors.
PRIORITY ONE ELECTRONICS and PRIORITY 1 ELECTRONICS are registered service
marks of the Heath Group. Ltd.
^ ORDER TOLL FREE (800)423-5922 (NOW IN CALIF. TOO!!)
442 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
iJSSDi]
BjB^BbbW BfflWaflag MStiS&wi ^fflaMHMBaT BBWBHf WBBBBBS& aBK^B w^BSBHt MU KnE&i 8n
Inquiry 294
BAR CODE READER-
• IBM PC/XT COMPATIBLE lAND MOST CLONES)
• CONNECTS BETWEEN KEYBOARD AND THE PC
• NO CAHO SLOT REQUIRED/SIMPLE INTERCONNECT
• NO CUSTOM SOFTWARE DRIVERS REQUIRED
• HIGH FIRST READ RATE
• READS DOT MATRIX 8 PRINTED BAR CODE LABELS
• CODE 3 OF 9 INTERLEAVED 2 OF 5. UPC
• AUTOMATIC BAR CODE SELECTION
• AUDIO AND VISUAL INDICATORS
• READS HIGH. MED AND LOW DENSITY LABELS
• SWITCH SELECTABLE OPTIONS (4QC
• SELF-TEST DIAGNOSTICS BtSW »■
PC/MS DOS BAR CODE PRINTING SOFTWARE S79 ea.
AMERICAN MICROSYSTEMS
P O BOX 830551. RICHARDSON, TX 75080
»(817| 834-9659 ...
MASHRCAHO AND VISA ACCEPTED fffMftV
An RS-232 Break-Out-Box
at a Fraction of the Cost.
RS-232 Multi-Adapter Board: 9 LED's for signal
monitoring. 24 switches to open any line (except line
1). 20 jumper wires allow re-wiring to any con-
figuration. 1 male and 1 female connector. Order
direct! Only $59.95. All cash orders postpaid. (IL
res. add 6% sales tax). We Accept MC. Visa. Free
illustrated catalog ot RS-232 interface and testing
equipment. Phone: 815-434-0846. Make checks
payable to:
l&B electronics
| HHi MANUFACTURING COMPANY
P.O. Box 1008B, OTTAWA, IL 61350
' — — . - - ' t- — ■ :
DOUBLE
THE OPTION CAPACITY
OF YOUR IBM PEBSONAt COMPUTER
PC-XTRA
• DIRECT EXTENSION OF
KM PC BUS
• NO SOFTWARE CHANGES
• NO HARDWARE MODIFICATION
• STYLING CONSISTENT WITH IBM
AM «JI tooie wki oot'Ons trial you ve Deen
wanling without worrying about tilling your
plug-in ana Dao panel space
DEALER INQUIRIES IHVT I ED.
S 549 °°" F B SANTA ANA
•CAWFORNift RESIDENTS ADD 6"» SALES TAJ
PC HORIZONS, INC.
1701 E. Edinger, Ste. A6, Sanla Ana, CA 92705
(714) 953-5396
Inquiry 3 1
Inquiry 276
<*S§@§&
development tools
C DOC: a cross-reference and
documentation system, $275.
The Program Tuning Kit: a sym-
bolic execution profiler, $145.
The C Browser: an intelligent code
display system, S125.
All three $445.
An invaluable suite of tools for C
software development under MS-
DOS/PC DOS.
Inquiry I40
m
iVs insured?
SAF EV.AKE 11 Insurance provides full
replacement of hardware, media and
purchased software. As little as $39At. covers:
• Fire • Theft • Power Surges
• Earthquake • Water Damage • Auto Accident
For information or immediate coverage call:
1-800-848-3469
In Obuj call 1-614-262-0559
( jaiiiBif )
safkwakk. Tie Insurance Agency Int
• Multi-user Database!
• Powerful!
• Multiple Operating
System Compatibility!
• Attractive Dealer
Pricing!
• Full Dealer Support!
Daiaflex is a trademark of Data Access
Dealer Inquiries Invited
24000 Telegraph Rodd
Sourhfield. Michigan 48034 USA
1313) 352-2345
Inquiry 64
OK-WRITER
LETTER QUALITY
Enhancement
Okidata ML82
Dot Matrix J
Easy io,
Plug-
Letti
eft Ck
1 2. 1 7 cpi
' graphics
to all features
:tng, bold, double
ning. self-test. etc.
parallel interfaces retained
Diagnostic HEX dump
any other features
RAINBOW TtCHNOLOGIES INC
17971-E Skypark Circle. Irvine, CA 92714
(714) 261-0228 Telex 386078
UK Distributor: X -DAT A (0753) 72331
KEYBOARD PROTECTOR
Remains in place during keyboard use. Prevents
damage from liquid spills, dust, ashes, etc. Fits
like a second skin, excellent feel. Available for:
IBM-PC. AT. Apple (all), Compaq. Model 100.
NEC 8201, C64. Zenith 150. DEC. Kaypro and
many others. Send $29.95. check. M.O.. Visa
& MC include exp. date. Specify computer type.
Dealer inquiries invited. Free brochure avail.
Merritt Computer Products, Inc.
2925 LBJ Fwy. *180 / Dallas, Texas 75234
(214) 942-1142
Inquiry 232
51/4 3M
W #t FLEXYC
S
5?
FLEXYDISKS
SS/DD
Soft
OS / DD $
Soft
1.34.
1.63.
"1.29,
'1.58,
PLUS— A $2.00 3M Factory Rebate
Coupon with each box, along with 3M's big
$30.00 rebate for other 3M products.
In Stock — Immediate Shipment.
Mastercard. VISA, Check or Money Order
Add S3 00 shipping charges per each 100 or part-
Add $2.50 additional lor C.O.D. shipments.
N.J. residents add 6% sales tax.
Data Exchange
Dept. B, P.O. Box 993
178 Route 206 South
Somerville. N.J. 08876
(201) 874-5050
Inquiry 32 1
Inquiry 310
Inquiry 104
4 MEGABYTE ™ ; HARD DISK
DRIVE SALE!
With 64K Installed
for IBM PC
For Your IBM PC
256K '399"
512K , «9«
1MB *549»
2MB -*«•?
For Your IBM PC-AT
" TALLTREE JRAM-2/JRAM-3
2 MEGABYTE card
For Your IBM PC
Up to 384K. parallel printer port. RS-232 serial port
game port, clock/calendar, RAM disk/printer but
fer software package
OK JADE Expando RAM
384K JADE Expando RAM
LIST JADE
'299 '149.95
'649 '199.95
EXPAND YOUR IBM PC,
IBM PC-XT, IBM PC-AT
LIST
_ '395
— ^45
— ! 165
>595
3.0 MB AST Advanlage-AT s 4145
IRMA 3270 Board s 1195
AST Six Pak Plus 64K
AST Six Pak Plus 384K
AST I/O Plut
128K AST Advantage-AT
IBM Video Boards
Hercules Color Graphics
Hercules Monochrome Graphics
Tecmar Graphics Master
Paradise Graphics Card
Everex Graphics Edge
JADE RGB w/Parallel Port
JADE RGB w Parallel & Serial
JADE TTL Monochrome720x348
LIST
'245
■499
'699
'395
'599
.'199
'299
'299
Ji
•249.95
1299.95
•129.95
'399.95
■999.95
•988.95
JADE
•189.95
•339.95
•499.95
•319.95
•349.95
'99.95
•199.95
'149.9S
135/150 WATT
Drop-in replacement
POWER SUPPLY
For your IBM PC
LIST J* DE
135 Watt $ 199 $ 959 5
150 Watt $ 249 $ 115 95
mEMEwm
FREE PC PAINTBRUSH
W/MICR0S0FT Mouse
LIST JADE
Microsoft Mouse. RS-232 Serial '199 '129.95
Microsoft Mouse. IBM Bus '199 '129.95
PC MOUSE with Pop-ups '195 '139.9 s
PC MOUSE with Paint '220 '159.95
CHnMna
LIST JADE
KB5150 Improved IBM Keyboard 209 '159.95
KB5151 Deluxe IBM Keyboard '299 '199.95
KB 200 for Apple II + '399 '249.95
KB5153. KB5152V also available.
64K RAM Chip S q 99
Upgrade Kits **
High speed RAM upgrade kit with FREE parity (er-
ror detection) and one year warranty. We ship
thousands of these kits to satisfied customers
every week.
128K RAM Chip Kit for AT
256K RAM Chip Kit
LIST JADE
'395 '99.95
_'99 '39.95
10 MEGABYTE
Hard Disk System
FOR YOUR
IBM PC
95
Complete with controller card, data cable
and mounting hardware, totally PC/XT com-
patible. External model includes cabinet &
power supply UST JADE
10 MB Internal % High S990
20 MB Internal % High '1550
33 MB Internal 45 ms '2184
20 MB Hi-Speed for AT 1250
30 MB Hi-Speed lor AT 1550
For external cabinet & power supply add '1 9995
'389.9S
•489.95
'1229.95
•699.9S
'899.95
^ C $QQ95
360K WW I
Disk Drive for IBM PC
TANDON 100-2, DS, DD '299
TEAC 55B, DS, DD '249
TEAC 55F, DS, QD 720K '299
High Resolution
Video Monitors
Amdek 300G
Amdek 300A
Amdek 31 0A
Amdek Color 710
PGS MAX-12E 720 x 350
PGS HX-12 640 x 240
PGS HX-12E 690 x 350
PGS SR-1 2 720 x 480
PGS Scan-Doubler for SR-12
Taxan 640 Ultra Hi-Res RGB
LIST
•179
.'199
'230
.'799
'269
'699
'785
'799
'299
.'799
'99.9s
•89.95
•99.95
JADE
'139.95
'149.95
'179.95
•589.95
'179.95
•449.95
'549.95
•629.95
'199.95
•599.95
IBM*
^ 1975 - 1985 ^
10 YEARS !*
SATISFACTION
GUARANTEED!
HAYES Smartmodem 1200 Compatible at a frac-
tion of the price FCC approved
JADE 1200 Baud External
JADE 2400 Baud External
JADE 1200B Internal _
LIST
_'349
.«99
^'349
JADE
179.95
•499.95
•179.95
HAYES
•*^i^H
^^ZJ
Smartmodems
""—-—->
y
Sophisticated direct-connect auto-answer/auto
dial modem, touch tone or pulse dialing
RS-232
interface programmable ,._,.
JADE
HAYES Smartmodem 2400
HAYES Smartmodem 1200
HAYES 1200B w/o Smartcor
'R99
>629 9 5
'699
'389.95
n II _ '539
•339.95
HAYES 1200B lor IBM PC '599
'359.95
HAYES Smartmodem 300 s 289
•169.95
HAYES Micromodem lie '299
•169.95
HAYES Smartmodem lie '399
•169.95
Mnripm Cahl* «3S
•24.95
PR0M0DEMS i
As Low As $14995^
ProModem 300c for Apple He
ProModem 1200B lor IBM PC
ProModem 1200 RS-232
ProModem 1200A tor Apple
ProModem 1200 for Macintosh
Alpha/num Display Option
Options Processor
64K Mem Expansion lor Above
Modem Cable
LIST
JADE
'199
'149.95
'399
'289.95
'495
'299.95
'449
'349.95
>495
'349.95
_'99
■79.95
__'99
'79.95
^'99
'19.95
'35
'24.95
rdiiiUA
EPSON FX-85 & FX-185, OKIDATA 192
& 193, C. ITOH, CITIZEN, STAR
PRICED TOO LOW
TO PUBLISH!
Call Us Toll Free For The Best
Deal In The Country!
A-B Printer/Data Switch
Fully bi-directional switch allows your computer
to run either of two printers, or allows two compu-
ters to share one printer, standard A-B switch box.
Parallel Printer A-B Switch
Serial A-B Switch
Parallel A-B-C-D Switch
Serial A-B-C-D Switch
Parallel "X" Switch
Serial "X" Switch
LIST
_ s 149
_ s 129
_ s 175
_M75
_ s 149
_ s 149
JADE
•69.9s
179.95
'99.95
>99.95
'89.95
•89.95
Printer Accessories
IBM PC Style Cable
Standard Parallel Cable
RS-232 Serial Cable
Ribbons
Apple lie/Macintosh Cable
LIST JADE
_ s 54 '19.95
_ s 40 '19.95
_ s 30 24.95
as low as '4.99
39 '19.95
These industrial quality ISO-BARs contain surge
suppression circuitry and built-in noise filters
plus a 15 amp circuit breaker list jade
6 Socket, 1 Filter ISO-BAR s 69 '44.95
4 Socket, 2 Filter ISO-BAR '89 '59.95
8 Socket, 4 Filter ISO-BAR s 99 "69.95
UNINTERRUPTABLE POWER SUPPLY
Emergency back-up power to save your computer
system. A must for every computer system
200 Watt UPS s 359 '269.95
425 Watt UPS s 539 "449.95
1000 Watt UPS s 1179 "969.95
Disk Drive
for Your
Apple lie
$129 95
Disk Drive lor Apple He
Parallel Printer Cable lor He
Full Height Disk Drive
Hall Height Disk Drive
ALS Z Engine
16K RAM Card
64K 80 Column Card lor He
Best 80 ColumnCard ll/ll-t _
Printer Card & Cable
Fan with Surge Protection
Grappler Plus
64K Buttered Grappler w/16K
_ 5 249
s 99
^ s 299
__ s 249
_ s 299
_ s 99
_ s 219
_ s 219
_M09
"99
_ s 175
_ s 275
JADE
'129.95
'59.95
'139.95
'129.95
'145.95
'39.95
'119.95
"139.95
'49.95
'59.95
"99.95
'149.95
Letter Quality Upgrade
For Your EPSON RX-80,
RX-100. FX-80. FX-100
Near-Letter-Quality upgrade with front panel font
controls for your old printer. L i S t JADE
LetterWriter Upgrade 79 '58.95
MICR0FAZER Buffers
Expandable to 64K (Parallel model
expands to512K)
8K Parallel in/Parallel out
64K Parallel in/Parallel out
128K Parallel in/Parallel out
Your choice: serial in/serial out. parallel m/senal
out. serial in/ parallel out
LIST JADE LIST JADE
8K 199 '169.95 64K 260 '199.95
LIST
JADE
'169
'139.95
s 225
'164.95
>445
'269.95
Microbuffers
Parallel or serial for printers and modems
Expands to 256K. L|ST JADE
32K Microbuffer __
64K Microbuffer
64K Add-on Board
. ! 299 '229.95
. >349 '249.95
.'179 "149.95
JADEXPC IBM PC
• 640K Of RAM
• 135 Watt Power Supply
• 8 Expansion Slots
• Deluxe Keyboard
• 90 Day Warranty
• 256K of RAM
• 63 Watt Power Supply
• 5 Expansion Slots
• IBM Keyboard
• 90 Day Warranty
256K of RAM, Two 360K Disk Drives & Disk Controller
$ 995
OPTION #1
256K of RAM
Two 360K Drives
Monochrome graphics card
Amdek 310A
IBM PC __ $ 1995
JADEXPC $ 1295
OPTION #3
640 K of RAM
10 Mb of Hard Disk
One 360K Drive
130 Watts of Power
Parallel & Serial Ports
Color Card
Taxan RGB Monitor
IBM PC _ $ 2995
JADEXPC $ 1995
*1695
OPTION #2
256K of RAM
Two 360K Drives
Color Graphics Card
Taxan RGB Monitor
IBM PC _ $ 2395
JADEXPC $ 1395
IBM PC-XT
• 256K RAM
• 10 Mb Hard Disk
• Mono-Graphics Card
• Parallel Printer Port
• Amdek 310A
$2895
IBM PC-AT
• 512K RAM
• 20 Mb 60 ms Hard Disk
• 1.2 Mb Disk Drive
• Parallel Printer Port
• Serial RS-232C Port
• Color Graphics Card
• Taxan Hi-Res Color Monitor
$4595
Place Orders Toll Free! 2
Continental U.S.A. Inside California Los Angeles Area
(800)421-5500 (800)262-1710 (213)973-7707 4901 W.Rosecrans Ave. Box 5046 Hawthorne. CA 90251-5046
Computer Products
TAXAN 415
High Resolution
Color Monitor
$
95
289
IBM Cable s 1495
LIST
PRICE
>699
• 640 X 262
• 16 Colors
• .38" Dot Pitch
• IBM & Lotus Compatible
• 12" Black Matrix
• 18 MHz Band Width
Why pay s 1 1 49 for a C.ltoh
STARWRITER F-10
When our 40 cps letter quality
daisywheel from the same
manufacturer is only
s 499
95
'"StarWnler is a Trademark of C Itoh
Digital Products. Inc
STREAMING TAPE
BACK-UP UNIT
V 2 Height Unit (Internal Mount)
File-by-File or Complete Image
Back-up and Retrieval
$ 399
95
Backs up 10 Megabyte/12 Min.
STAR
GEMINI 10-X
120 cps
Friction &
Adjustable
Tractor Feed
w/Graphics
Limited
Quantity.
s 159
CANON PRINTERS
160 cps, 23 x 18 NLQ Mode, 2K
Buffer. Single Sheet & Fan Fold
Paper, Hi-Res Graphics, Bi-direc-
tional/Logic Seeking, Quiet— Less
Than 60dB
PW-1080A 10" Carriage
I95
s 199 !
LIST
PRICE
'499
PW-1156A 15" Carriage
s 299
95
LIST
PRICE
s 699
Hurry! Limited quantity-No rain checks!
360K DISK
DRIVE
Double-Sided, Double-Density
IBM PC. XT or
Compatibles
JADE 1200
BAUD MODEM
HAYES Smartmodem 1200 compatible
at a fraction of the price. FCC approved
$ 179
TOSHIBA
PRINTERS
24 Pin Letter Quality High
Speed Dot Matrix Printers
P1340 Parallel
P1340 Serial
P341 Parallel
P341 Parallel/Serial
P351 Parallel
P351 Parallel/Serial
_ s 799
_ ! 799
>599.«
S59995
*999. 95
M299
1349 '1049."
1699 '1099. 95
1749 M149.35
BERNOULLI BOX
s 1995
New Half-Height Drives!
10 Mb Bernoulli Box
10 - 10 Bernoulli Box
20 Mb Bernoulli Box
20 20 Bernoulli Box
Controller Card
New Plus Card
Extra 10 Mb Cartridge
Extra 20 Mb Cartridge
s 2295
s 3195
! 2995
^4540
_ s 155
_>355
s 79
s 99
'1995
s 2695
'2495
>3495
'129
'279
'59
>69
PLACE ORDERS TOLL FREE!
Continental U.S.A. Inside California
(800)421-5500 (800)262-1710
fccXPftESS
Los Angeles Area
(213)973-7707
We accept cash, checks, credit cards or purchase orders from qualified firms & institutions
Minimum prepaid order $15.00. California residents add 6 \/ ? % tax Prices A availability sub-
ject to change without notice. Shipping & handling charges via UPS Ground 50C/lb. UPS Air
Si.00.--ib Minimum charge $3.00
Computer Products
4901 W. Rosecrans, Box 5046, Hawthorne, CA 90250-5046
466 BYTE* DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 190
$91.00
Single Board Computer
,* ? -
6S00 MPU, serial I/O, parallel I/O, RAM,
EPROM, 44-pln 4.5" » 6.5" PCB
EXPANSION MODULES: RAM, EPROM, CMOS
RAM/battery, analog I/O, serial I/O,
parallel I/O, counter/timer, IEEE-488,
EPROM programmer, floppy disks,
cassette, breadboard, keyboard/display.
IWinlek Corp.
1801 South SI
Lalavette. IN 47904
Lafayette. IN 47904
31 7 7428428
SAVE TIME AND MONEY WITH
LOW COST PI-SWITCH BOXES.
f 1 j»
n Starting at $59.95 I-. 1
&£
titiJa fc»
•Quickly shares your computer among
multiple terminals, printers, moderns, etc.
with just a tlick of the wrist.
•Compact black & beige aluminum
enclosure features a high quality rotary
switch with rear mounted connectors.
•Serial RS-232 Models have fern. 25-Pin Conn.
(Lines 1-7 & 20)
PI-02S switches 2 to 1 $59.95
PMJ3-S switches 3 to 1 79.95
PI-05-S switches 5 to 1 10945
•Parallel models have fern. 36-Pin cent. conn.
PI-02-P switches 2 to 1 94.95
PI-04-P switches 4 to 1 154.95
•Dealers, schools & custom inquiries welcome.
•One Year Warrantee. COD. VISA, M/C.
• Shipping UPS $2.00/ea AIR $4 00/ea
iflt> /~~\ r3C1 NW 41 Sl '
LyunK
MIAMI, FL 33166
(305) 592-6092
Serial 4 I IIMII I ^ Parallel
Convert What You Have
To What You Want I
* RS232 Serial ' Centronics Parallel
* 8 Baud Rates * Handshake Signals
* Latched Outputs ' Compact 3V, x *% x Vf,
No longer will your peripheral choices be limited by the type
of port you have available! Our new High Performance 700
Series Converters provide the missing link. Based on Ihe
latest in CMOS technology, these units leature full baud
rate selection to 19. 2K, with handshake signals to maximize
transfer efficiency. Detailed documentation allows
simplified installation. Order the Model 770 (Ser/Par) or
Model 775 (ParfSer) Today!
only*89. 95
Conned or Option 1 10.00
CA Residents 6% tax
UPS Shipping 1300
iiatrtranicB
2734-C Johnson Dr
Post Office Box 3717
Ventura. California 93006
CALL (805) 658-7466 or 658-7467
i For FAST Delivery I
Inquiry 376
Inquiry 320
Inquiry 357
5V4" FLOPPY
MOTORS
Now BuehlerOEM replace-
ment spindle motors for all
major 5V4 -inch, full-height
floppy disk drives are
available for fast delivery.
Built to exact OEM size, per-
formance and quality stan-
dards. Pulleys included.
For details and prices,
contact:
Buehler Services, Inc.
PO. Box A, Hwy 70-E
Kinston, NC 28501
Phone: 919/522-4300
Maxell Floppy Disks
The Mini-Disks
with maximum quality
Dealer inquiries
invited. CO.D's
accepted. Call
FREE (800) 235-4137.
PACIFIC EXCHANGES
100 Foothill Blvd.. San Luis
San Luis Obispo. CA 93401
In Catcall (800) 592-5935 or
(805)543-1037.
DATA ACQUISITION TO GO
INTERFACE FOR ANY COMPUTER
Connects via RS-232. Built-in BASIC.
Stand alone capability. Expandable.
Battery Option. Basic system: 16 ch.
12 bit A/D, 2 ch. D/A, 32 bit Digital I/O.
Expansion boards available. Direct
Bus units for many computers.
SPECIALISTS IN PORTABLE APPLICATIONS
(201) 299-1615
P.O. Box 246, Morris Plains, NJ 07950
ELEXOR
inquiry 277
Inquiry I3I
Osborne
As available only! Very limited quantity.
Important:
Always call to
check availa-
bility before
ordering.
To fix yourself,
or for parts.
Complete, but
known not
working.
Guaranle
days. Ma
or lefurb
ding on
Exch/
Repair
ed for 30
/ be new
, depen-
svaii.
Outright
Mam Board OS-1
$79
579
$139
Main Board Exec.
$159
$139
$299
Battery Pack, 40 Watt
—
$49
Double Density Kit •■
** Includes board, cab)
a, -cume
niation 81
$79
disk
5" CRT (Grn/White)
$9.95
$19
$29
7" CRT (Amber)
$19
$49
$99
15" CRT, no case
$85
Drive Analog Card
$9.95
$29
$59
Drive Mechanism
S19
$25
S59
Power Supply
$4.95
$24
$29
Keyboard (No enclos.)
S9.9S
$99
Shipping charged on all orders
Computer Parts Mart 415-493 5930
200 Park Blvd * Palo Alto * CA 94306
W PC/XT USERS!
#
COGTREE Utilities by
Cogitate SI 29.95
#
LYNC by Norton-Lamber S199.95
#
DATAFLEX by Data Access. . .Varies
#
RM/COBOL by Ryan/
McFarland Varies
#
Universe by Omnitrend . . . . S 98.50
§
Blue Mac! by Cogitate S599.00
1
CadPower + by Tnlex $995.00
f
Softext Teaching Aids $ 95.00
1
PrmtSet by Cogitate S 79.95
f
CogiTAPE by Cogitate CALLII
M
Anti-Static Products Varies
W
Uninterruptible Power
Backups Varies
J
TeleVideo Software CALLII
Elite!
"A Higher Form of Software"
24000 Telegraph Road
Southfleld. Ml 48034
[313] 352-2345/Telex 386581
VISA/MASTERCARD ACCEPTED
Dealer inquiries Welcomed
Inquiry 78
Inquiry 34
Inquiry 63
TERMINAL
EMULATION
Softerm PC emulates over 30
popular terminals Including the:
• DECVT102.VT220
• Data General D200, D410
• IBM 3101-20 (block mode)
• Hewlett-Packard 2622A
• Honeywell VIP7801. VIP7803
Guaranteed Compatibility
Call for free product brief
S195MC-VISA-COD
For the IBM PC/XT/ AT, DG1 , NEC,
Wang PC, Tl Pro, Gridcase, Tandy
sofihonics
3639 New Getwell, Suite 10
Memphis, TN 38118
901-683-6850
DISK DUPLICATION
5V«" DOUBLE SIDED
$.98
3V SINGLE SIDED
$2.12
PRICES BASED ON RUN SIZE OF 1000
maxell.-
1-800-222-0490
201-462-7828 in NJ
MHEKeft
PO BOX 1143 FREEHOLD, N.J. 07728
DATA SWITCHES
SHARE computers, printers,
any parallel or senai device
M ELIMINATE cable swapping
INEXPENSIVE way to network
COMPATIBLE with
all computers
Businesses, Schools. Homes
WE ALSO OFFER
Data Butters. Line Drivers,
Modems, Protocol Converters.
Parallel - Serial Converters.
Cables, Computers. Printers,
Disk Drives, and more
AUTOMATIC - CARETAKER is ideal for a business or
school to share a printer or modem among many computers
Operation is fully automatic with no software required
Parallel or Serial 4 channels - S295 8 channels - $395
MANUAL HARDSWITCH is operated with the flip of a
switch 22 and 2:4 models allow simultaneous commun-
ication
Serial 1.2 $59 1 4 $ 99 2 2 $109 2 4 $169
Parallel 1 2 - $79 14- $139 22 - $119 24 $199
LED and spike protection on serial models add $20
CODE ACTIVATED - PORTER connects one computer to
multiple peripherals A software code selects the peripheral
Parallel or Serial 4 channels - $295 8 channels - $395
Buffer option 64K - $100 256K • $250
REMOTE - TELEPATH connects multiple computers to
multiple peripherals A selector at each computer or terminal
chooses up to 4 peripherals and displays busy status
4 4 $495 4 8 - $795 selector - $39
~ — £^*W * T£oAe U yot* e*m0itn "
ROSE ELECTRONICS (713) 240-7673
P.O. BOX 742571 MC h VISA AccapUd
HOUSTON, TX 77274 Dealer Inquiries Invited
CALL US FOB ALL YOUR IN TERFACE NEEDS
Inquiry 332
Inquiry 230
Inquiry 315
Pinwriter P-2 $ 485
(w/lnterface & Tractor)
Pinwriter P-3 $ 685
(w/lnterface & Tractor)
Pinwriter P-5 $ 925
(w/lnterface & Cut Sheet Guide)
ELF 360, 350 $ 380
2010/15/30/50 $ 605
3510/15/30/50 $ 960
8810/15/30/50 $1365
Optional Forms Handling
Devices CALL
QUALITY PRINTERS
8415 Cement City Rd.
Brooklyn, Michigan 49230
Phone: 517-592-3749
FREE SOFTWARE
FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
User Group Software isn't copyrighted, so no fees to
pay! 1000's of CP/M and IBM software programs in
COM and source code to copy yourself! Games.
business, utilities' All FREE!
Rent Buy
IBMPC-SIG 1-370 Disksides 400. 800.
IBMPC-BLUE 1-116 Disksides 145. 375.
SIG/M UG 1-222 Disksides 130. 625.
CP/M UG 1-92 Disksides 45. 250.
PICO NET 1-34 Disksides 25. 100.
KAYPRO UG 1-39 Disksides 45. 90.
EPSON UG 1-39 Disksides 45. 90.
Commodore CBM 1-28 Oisksides. . 25. 65.
Public Domain User Group Catalog Disk $5 pp
(payment in advance, please)
Rental is for 7 days after receipt. 3 days grace to
return. Use a credit card, no disk deposit
Shipping, handling & insurance $950 per library.
(619) 941-0925 Orders & Technical (9 to 5)
(619) 727-1015 24 Hr. 3 Mm. Info Recording
Have your credit card ready!
National Public Domain Software
1533 Avohill Dr.
Vista, CA 92083
BBB
AM EX
ROM DISK
EPROM DISKETTE AND
DISK DRIVE EMULATOR
IBM PC* COMPATIBLES
AND APPLE lie*
• Diskless control and communications systems
• Dedicated workstations for improved
productivity
• Customized, high speed, smart terminal
• Put software in silicon
• Solid state reliability and performance
• Self contained control and EPROM
program circuitry
• PC and MS DOS' compatiOle
ROMDISK PC-I |I80KJ S49S
ROMDISK PC-2 |360K) S595
ROMDISK A FOR //e |I44K) S349
WS4'
CURTIS, INC. 22 Red Fox Road
St. Paul. MN 55110 612/484-5064
Inquiry 306
Inquiry 259
Inquiry 90
ICs and Disk Drives
64K / 128K / 256K
D-RAMs at LOW PRICES
TEAC FD-55BV DSDD Disk Drives
KB5.00 sach or
f 7S.50 each for box of 1 D
[w/one year factory warranty!]
V 20 TURBO CHARGER
• HIGH SPEED— Up to 40% ^crease'
• CMOS- -Uses 85% tess power
• REPLACES slow 8088 CPU
• LOW COST!
MEMORY BOARDS
•SIXPAK PLUS W/64K 1230.00
•ABM SUPEPBOARD w/BK S150.0O
•ABM MEM512 w/BK S100.00
•JRAM 2 wflDK B159.00
EPROM, SUA M, BOB7, and 80287a ara IN STOCK
CALL US FOR DETAILS!
ExcelTec Industries, Inc.
RO. Box 2205 Silver Spring, MD 20902
1015 Gayley Ave #422. Los Angeles. CA 90024
West Coast East Coast
Phone: (213) 208-6942 (301) 933-3523
FAX: (213) 208-6846 (301) 933-3643
OEMs and DEALERS are invited
CALL US FOR THE LATEST PRICES
ATTENTION
BERNOULLI BOXERS
Give your IOMEGA a Boot!
FiXT/B PLUS for
IBM AT, XT, PC and compatibles
FiXT B PLUS gives you the utility of a bootable
hard disk while preserving the performance of
your Bernoulli Boi.
You cm have it all
wtth FiXT/B PLUS!
Golden Bow Systems
$95-$110
Add 13 lor shipping |
tundhne
Cailonna residents Odd
6\ silee m
3308 Second Aw Suite r-
San Dwqo. CA 92103
(619)298-9349
*** APPLE IBM** 1 *
PRINTERS-PLOTTERS-MODEMS
EXTERNAL PRINTER BUFFER
a 64K RAM
• BUILT-IN MICROPROCESSOR
a WORKS WITH ANY RSZ32 INTERFACE
• 8 SELECTABLE BAUD RATES
a SEPARATE INPUT AND OUTPUT SPEEDS
a SELECTABLE CHARACTER ATTRIBUTES
a XON/XOFF OR HARDWARE HANDSHAKE
a BUFFER LEVEL AND STATUS DISPLAY
a STANDARD DB25 CONNECTORS
a ACCEPTS ANY DATA FORMAT
PCB. ROM 5 SCHEMATICS S75
FULL KIT $135
ASSEMBLEO & TESTED SI 85
5-CHANNEL 256K ALSO AVAILABLE
MICRO SYSTEMS DESIGN
PO BOX 1 187
LOOMIS. CA 95650
(916) 652-5665
Inquiry 4I3
Inquiry 1 54
Inquiry 239
icro
roducts
nternational
714/898-0840
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL S
:=: p=:_: New Hayes SmartModem Compatible! J:pC
i. » o. .«.■?■ W yX "e lo catch yi
N *• V k 0* ° v <&V«£> > *Vour volume purchase ot
Finally a price breakthrough on a Hayes compatible, e xternal 3Q0 1 200
baud modem. This low price is without
driver software, but it you need it add S25.00
7 Call for a 26 page catalog of our special deals
r Look in this spot every month for Hot, New items \
sure to catch your interest.
SELECTRIC KEYBOARDS
e purchase ot these excellent Selectnc type keyboards will bring trie
features you nave been wanting down to a price you can't resist So many features
- you'H love it!! • Single Key reset
• separate numeric keypad ' l v SJ _ u , u . . , . , Ju ,_,
l\*' JF*!*' » oJ'X •Separate "Arrow' keypad - [ M ^-,
^C» ci .c?' $>Y ' Dimple marked 5 '. F .» J keys x
d 1 *iTjf <)sfVKEY-1051-00 Select™ $129.00 Tf
<ei °*a# x^X KEY- 1050-00 Standard 89.00
*^'
MOTHERBOARD
Micro Products announces a powerful new IBM XT type motherboard. 4 layers for superior reliability
& speed. Turbo mode allows 75% higher thru-put by increasing sys-
tem clock to 7 MHz under software control. Designed to use new
256K RAM chips or 64K chips. 640K memory expansion does not
require useof valuable card slots. Many outstanding features com-
bined with our new 7 PAK Multifunction board make previously
expensive options standard features at a LOW LOW Cost.
BOA-6078-00 Supplied with OK $349.00
► Runs the popular
Hayes communications software
• FCC apprvd direct RJ-11 connection"
• Phone Cable & power supply
one low price
MOD-8100-00 $1 99.00
ADD-ON POWER SUPPLIES
Two new, thoroughly
tested IBM PC/XT power
supplies for your system
upgrade. Best price in "V '■*z % "^
Byte with ONE YEAR X^ *J* ^.
warranty!! ^L **^k
POW-1040-00 135 watt $ 99.0oV ^L
POW-1044-00 150 watt $115.00 X *^L
V\\»
SUPER 12 PAK MULTI-FUNCTION
This one is really loaded! Features One Parallel Port, One RS232-C
Serial Port, One Game Port, Real-Time Clock /Calendar with Bat-
tery Back-up, Expandable to 384K of Parity-checked Memory, Sup-
plied OK Memory, all cables, PrintSpooler
and RAM Disk Software.
BOA-6335-00 $129.95
Additional (9) 64K Memory Chips
KIT-8000-00 $ 1 0.00
5»
Do it Yourself!
hree ways to begin ■ an Empty cabinet ■ a "Basic"
a Full system ■ all that you assemble yourself!
CABINET ONLY
I Slot CAB-3068-00 $75.00
"BASIC"
Cabinet, Keyboard, Power Supply, Motherbrd w/OK
iYS-8000-00 $525.00
This is OUR Junior!
Jsethis "Omstess" workstation tor lew-cost Networking,
Matures: • 4-slot IBM™ compatible Motherboard
i 1 28K Standard Memory • 8088,8067 Math Co-pro-
:essor • Optional Floppy Drive with Controllers.
YS-8100-00 $475.00
uli System w/Keyboard, Mono Monitor, Video Display
ard, 256K 1 RAM Drive SYS-ft7?S-uO $895.00
*1395°° WOW!
Complete ===;i= T imHn
System! --- ^=- f tfrffot /
NEW 1 7,000 in Service! ^Si*
Features!
a RAM DisK
km' Game Port
m640K epety
W PrintSpooler
WTurbo mode!
4.77MHz
to 7MHz!
mSer,Par
mciock
Add-On H.D. & Tape
////«
M995 00
20 Meg Color
Complete System!
$ 2550 00
40 Meg w/Tape
Complete System!
*3035 00
Software
• XWORD
• XBASIC
• XBASE
• XCALC
> XCOM
Check These Standard Features:
• Full-Size, Feather-Touch, Capacitance Keyboard, to Function Keys, Calculator-Type Numeric Keypad •
• Parallel & Serial I/O • Real Time Clod. • Game Port • 2-Slimline 5V4 ■ DS/DO 48 TPI 360K Drives •
•8 IBM expansion slots • RAM Disk •PrintSpooler • 4 DMA &3 Timer channels'
• Full 640K capacity on-board • 8088 16-bit CPU • Monochrome Video Card •
• Up to 32K ot EPROM (full 8K supplied) • Supports PC-DOS ■ MS-DOS - CP/M-86 •
• Power Supply Hard-Disk-Ready, no need to add-on additional power •
' High resolution 12" Monitor, Green Screen, 22 MHz bandwidth »
10 Meg $1095
20 Meg $1295
26 Meg $1395
10 or 20 Megabyte on the
top, your choice of Hard
Disk on the bottom. Super
appearance! Requires
one slot in your PC for
SASI Interface and an ex-
tension connecto. on the
floppy card. Everything
else is supplied by us.
40 Meg $1695
105 Meg $4195
140 Meg $4695
Add-On Hard Disk
Two ways to go. The Internal system is cheaper because
it does not need a P/S & Chassis. The same P/S & Chassis
can be used for a 10 Meg Tape Back-up on your XTI
10 Megabyte
'525lnt/'695ut
20 Megabyte
•650lnt/'795«t
26 Megabyte
•795lnt/'895ext
40 Megabyte
■1195lnt/*1295exl
105 Megabyte
'3795int/'3995ext
140 Megabyte
*4395lnt/'4695flxt
Add-On 20 Meg Tape
SUB-8300-00
IfyourlBM-ATneedsalit-
tle help in the Back-up
category, you won't be
able to beat this price!
Cables, software and
everything!
$595.00
Not enough room here - Call for Catalog
PROM LASER
This is the O ne! Our PROM Burner allows reading, storing-to-dsk, recalling, and
burning. Hi-speed alogrithmes burns 2764
in 45 seconds! Also handles 271 6, 2732,
27128, 27256. Features: Zero insertion
torce sockets; On-board Voltage Generator:
No Interference with normal computer
operations
BOA-8640-00 $199.00
MISCELLANEOUS $$$ SAVERS
7 PAK Multifunction Floppy, RTC. 2 Serial. 1 Parallel, Game, RAM Disk
BOA-6250-00 $1 89.00
64K Memory Chips (9) NEC for IBM KIT-8000-00 $ 1 0.00
256K DRAM Memory Chips (9) ■ 256K KIT-9000-00 S 45.00
Add-On Memory, (up to 512K) supplied OK BOA-6350-00 $ 99.00
Floppy Controller, Controls up to lour drives, 5V» ■ 48/96 TPI
BOA-6100-00 $ 95.00
Monochrome Graphics C«rd, (Hercules type) (1-2-3 compatible) 720h x 348v
BOA-6150-00 $1 75.00
Color Graphics Card. 320 x 200 Res. Color, 640 x 200 Monochrome
BOA-6200-00 $1 45.00
Clock Calendar Board, fits In "short slot" w/battery Back-up
BOA-6375-00 $ 55.00
Hard Disk Controller, standard ST-506 interface for DOS 2.1 & 3.1
BOA-8060-00 $1 55.00
100/1200 Baud Modem Internal w/PC Talk III Communications Software
BOA-8725-00 $21 0.00
Monochrome Monitor, 22MHz bandwidth, composite input or TTL
UON-1725-OOGreen/Comp 99.00 MON-170O-O0 Amber/Comp 104.00
v10N-1775-OOGreen/TTL.. 104.00 MON-1750-00 Amber/TTL .. 109.00
We want your DRIVE business!
Mill
Shugart 3«0K TEAC 360K NEC 10meg Tulin 26meg Memtek m,jj
•«.<;»• "OS" >34.<;»« •fins" >aa<;°o
INTERNATIONAL ORDERS
Micro Products is ready to serve your needs in several countries. Each Office has
Sales Literature, Local Pricing, Inventory and Technical Service available to sup-
port your needs. There are no problems with U.S. Export Forms.
USA OFFICE
15392 Assembly Lane, Unit A
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
Tel: 714/ 898-0840
Tlx: 887841 XORDATA HTBH
AMSTERDAM OFFICE
Building 70, 4th Floor
1117ZHSchiphol-East
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: (020) 45 26 50 -Tlx: 18306
AUSTRALIAN OFFICE
8 Irwin Street, Bellevue
W. Australia 6056
Tel: 274-3701
MARACAIBO OFFICE
Av. 3F Esq. Cafle 81
Centro Com. Maelga ■ Local #5
Maracaibo, Venezuela 4001-A
Tel: 061-913328 -Tlx: 62344 PEMIN
BOMBAY OFFICE
311 Sindhi Lane
Nanubhai Desai Rd.
Bombay 400-004 India
Tel: 357172 -Tlx: 011-2868
CANADA OFFICE
264 Prhcipale. St. Blaise.
Quebec, Canada J0J1WO
Tel: 541/291-3118
Now SFC-XT in a Kit!
Completely XT Compatible
$ 109S°°
Why didn't anybody think of it before? if
you have a phillips screwdriver and 1 - 2 hours
available, SAVE yourself a bundle of MONEY! No-
where will you beat this deal on a complete 8 slot
ready-to-assemble and run XT compatible.
• Cabinet • 2-360K Shugart Drives
• 135 watt Power Supply • Floppy Controller &
• Keyboard Cable
• 8 Slot Motherboard • Mono Video Card
e 256K RAM • TTL Amber Monitor
Micro Products • 15392 Assembly Lane • Huntington Beach, C A 92649 • 714/898-0840 ■+
IBM PC
256k, 2 floppies
IBM PC 10 MB
256k, 1 or 2 floppies
IBM PC 20 MB
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
IBM PC 30 MB
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
IBM PC 10 * 10
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
10MB HD & 10MB Backup
IBM PC 20 + 20
256k, 1 or 2 floppies
20MB HD & 20MB Backup
IBM XT
256k. 2 floppies
IBM XT 10 MB
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
IBM XT 20 MB
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
IBM XT 30 MB
256k, 1 or 2 floppies
IBM XT 10 + 10
256k, 1 or 2 floppies
10MB HD& 10MB Backup
IBM XT 20 ♦ 20
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
20MB HD & 20MB Backup
IBM AT 20 MB
512k. 1 or 2 floppies
IBM AT 30 MB
512k. 1 or 2 floppies
IBM AT 40 MB
512k. 1 or 2 floppies
FOR EXTRA SAVINGS
Call for the latest prices for your custom
configuration. All systems are configured
and tested at no extra cost and come
only with Compumail s 90 day warranty.
IBM AT 20 • 20
512k, 1 or 2 floppies
20MB HD& 20MB Backup
IBM AT 30 * BO
512k. 1 or 2 floppies
30MB HD & 60MB Backup
IBM AT 40 + 60
512k, 1 or 2 floppies
40MB HD 8. 60MB Backup
COMPAQ
PORTABLE
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
COMPAQ
PORTABLE 10 MB
256k. 1 or 2 floppies
COMPAQ
DESK PRO 10 MB
640k, 1 or 2 floppies
COMPAQ
DCSKPRO 10 ♦ 10
10MB HD& 10MB Backup
COMPAQ
DESKPRO 20 MB
Backup Available
COMPAQ
DESKPRO 30 MB
Backup Available
COMPAQ
DESKPRO 40 MB
Backup Available
COMPAQ
PORTABLE 286
Custom Configurations
COMPAQ
DESKPRO 286
Custom Configurations
IBM XT
COMPATIBLE
Custom Configurations
IBM AT
COMPATIBLE
Custom Configurations
IBM COMPATIBLES
ARE YOUR LOW COST
ALTERNATIVE
* PRICE WAR • LAST
WITH YOUR BEST QUOTES
PRINTERS
EPSON FX-85 + NLQ $339
FX-185 + NLQ $459
Sht Fdr FX-85/FX-185 $249/$299
NLQ Upgrade Kit for FX-80/FX-100 CALL
LX-80/HI-80/JX-80 $219/$359/$469
Tractor LX-80/FX-80/HI-80 $50/$60/$7O
LQ-1500 w/Parallel Module $889
LQ Tract/Sing/Dual Shi Fdr $70/$450/$750
LX-90w/Par Interfaces Tractor , $279
OKIOATA 192-P/192-IBM . ... $329
193-P/193-IBM $459
84-P/84-IBM $629
93-IBM (While Supplies Last) $499
TOSHIBA 1340P $469 341 CALL
TOSHIBA 351-P/S REDUCED' $1069
351 Tractor/Sht Fdr $190/5790
JUKI 6100/6200/6300 $349/$549/$649
6X00 Tractor/Sht Fdr $150/$250
5510P(160cps) $369 5510 Color Kil $150
BROTHER HR-15XL $329
HR-15Trac $110 Sht Fdr $190
HR-15 Keyboard $160
HR-25P/HR-35P $439/$649
HR-25/35 Tractor/Sht Fdr $120/$200
2024L LQ/Graphics-24 pin. 160/80 cps $779
2024L Sht Fdr-Narrow/Wide $220/$290
TWINRITER 5 Worlds First Dot Matrix &
Daisy Wheel combined in ONE $799
TWINRITER 5 Trac/Sht Fdr $150/5250
C.ITOHProWnterJrw/NLQ $219
8510BPI ' $309 8510SEP+NLQ $379
8510SCEP + NLQ $449 1550-EP $429
1550SEP + NLQ $519 1550SCEP+NLQ $619
24L0P $949 A10-30SP $439
Y10-20P $379 A10 Tractor $160
F10-40P $869 F10-55P $1069
F10 Tractor/Sht Fdr $190/$290
CX-4800P 4 Pen Plotter $429
OUMELetterPro20P(20cps) $399
20P Trac/Sht Fdr $150/$390
SPRINT 1140 + /1155+ $1299/$1399
SPRINT Interface Module $80
SPRINT Trac/Sht Fdr $210/$690
PANASONIC KX-P3151LQ(22cps) $459
KX-P1090/91/92/93 $199/$259/$369/$469
STAR Power Type $349
SG-10/SG-15(120cps) $259/$399
SD-10/SD-15(160cps) $369/5479
SR-10/SR-15(200cps) $519/5619
NECPINWRITERP-2/P-3 $499/$699
Stit Fdr lor P-2/P-3 5350/5420
2050/3550/8850 $649/$999/$1399
SPINWRITER Trac/Sht Fdr . $190/5790
ELF360Par(16cps) 5419
DIABLO Advantage D- 25 5499
630 API $1499 630ECS-IBM 51599
Trac/Mech Single Bin Sht Fdr 5230/5470
CITIZEN: 18 months manufacturer warranty
MSP-10/15(160/40cps) 5299/5449
MSP-20/25(200/50cps) 5439/5589
Sht Fdr {Specify Model) 5229
LEGEND CP VII $899 1200 $259
880/1080/1380/1385 $199/$219/$259/S319
ANADEX 9620B/9625B-PLUS 51199/51299
9725B COLOR ... 51399
WP6000/DP6500 52299/52569
HEWLETT PACKARD PRINTERS CALL
SILVER REED Daisywheel - Parallel Models
400/500/550/770 $189/$269/$379/S669
TELEVIDE0 750Daisywheel-50cps CALL
AB/ABC/ABCD Switch Boxes CALL
KENSINGTON Universal Printer Stand 520
With Printer $10
FLOPPY/HARD DISKS
CDC/MITSUBISHI/PANASONIC/TANOON/TEAC
MONITORS
Half Ht DSDD REDUCED
Free Mounting Kit with 2 Drives
CDC/TANDON Full Ht DSDD
HARD DISKS for IBM PC/XT
REDUCED
REDUCED
REDUCED
REDUCED
REDUCED
REDUCED
REDUCED
REDUCED
10 MB Inl w/Controller
10 MB Ext w/Conlroller
20 MB Int w/Controller
20MBExtw/Controller
33 MB Int w/Controller
33 MB Ext w/Controller
44 MB Int w/Controller
44 MB Ext w/Controller
MAYNARD complete line
MAYNSTREAM portable tape backup 20MB
MAYNSTREAM portable tape backup 60MB
HARD DISKS/BACKUP FOR IBM PC AT
GENOA GALAXAY TAPE BACKUPS
20 MB Int/Exl
60 MB Inl/Ext
32 + 60 MB Exl Disk/Backup
TALL GRASS NEW PC/T FORMAT
25/35 MB w/60 MB Backup
50/80 MBw/60 MB Backup
60 MB Tape Backup only
Controller. $140 Cartridge (60 MB)
EVEREX 60MB Tape Backup Int
EVEREX 60MB Tape Backup Ext
EVEREX Expansion Chasis Half Height
EVEREX Expansion Chasis Full Height
INTERDYNE TAPE BACKUP
10 MB Int/Ext REDUCED
20 MB Int/Ext REDUCED
HARD DISKS/BACKUP FOR COMPAQ
BERNOULLI Box by Iomega 10+ 10
Auto Boot also Available
BERNOULLI Box by Iomega 20 + 20
POWER SUPPLY 130 Watts
POWER SUPPLY 150 Watts
$79
$99
$399
$569
$469
5649
5999
51199
51349
51499
5999
51299
CALL
5749/5849
5999/51099
52399
S2599/$3399
$4299/55499
51199
540
$899
$999
$699
$749
5369/5549
CALL
CALL
CALL
CALL
599
MULTI-FUNCTION CARDS
$209 384K
ASTSIXPAK64K
Rampage'
Advantage OK $379 128K
ORCHID Blossom OK $169 384K
Conquest for IBM PC/XT (up to 2MB)
Cram-RAM for IBM XT shod slot i up to 2MB)
EccellforlBM AT (up to 4MB)
TECMAR Captain 0-K $169 384K
MAESTRO AT w/Treasure Chest
INTEL Above Board (up to 4MB)
PARADISE 5-Pack OK $139 384K
MF-100 0-K 5169 384k
Par. Ser & Game Ports. Clock/Cal
QUADBOARD OK 5189 384K
Silver Quadboard 0-K to 640k
Gold Quadboard Multifunction & Color
QuadmegAT(upto4MB)
Quadport-AT/ Expansion Kit
INSTALL RAM & test brd for PC/AT
5239
CALL
5389
$199
CALL
CALL
CALL
$199
Besl Price
CALL
$169
$199
PGS MAX-12/HX 12/HX-12E $169/5419/5499
HX-9/HX 9E/SR-12 $419/$499/$549
SR-12w/ScanDoubler 5699
SR-12w/Sigma400 5999
TAXAN NEW MONITORS GUARANTEED LOWEST
PRICES ON ALL TAXAN MONITORS
COLOR 620 4 text modes - 640X262 Res
COLOR 630 4 text modes ■ 640X400 Res
COLOR 640 Top ot the line monitor
COLOR 640 w/ TAXAN 555 RGB Card 5749
COLOR 640 w/Persysl BoB Brd 5799
COLOR 640 w/Sigma 400 5939
AMDEK 30OG/300A/310A(M| $139/5149/5159
COLOR 300/500/600 $239/5349/5419
710 $489 w/Tecmar Graphics Master $899
PGS MD 12 RGB 690x400 BEST $399
With Persyst Bob Brd VALUE $699
ROLAND MB-142 14" BS.W Reversible 5299
TECMAR Cow 5529 w/Graphcs Master $939
SONY TV/RGB Monitor in ONE $449
TILT/SWIVEL Moniior Pedestal $20
DISPLAY CARDS
HERCULES MonoGraphics $289 Color $149
HERCULES COMPATIBLE MonoGraphics $199
EVEREX Graphics Edge $269
The Edge 5269
AST Preview w / Flight Simulator 5249
PERSYST Short Color'Mim Mono S159/CALL
Color Combo Multifunction & Color from 5299
Mono Combo Multifunction & Mono Irom 5299
PERSYST BoB Board $339
PERSYST Bob w/TAXAN 640 $799
IBM EGA ( Enhanced Color Graphics ) $499
With IBM Enhanced Color Monitor $1079
Gold Quadboard: Multifunction & Color CALL
STB Chauffer REDUCED 5299
PARAOISE Modular Brd trom 5279
TECMAR Graphics Master 5429
G Master w/TECMAR Color Monitor 5939
G Master w/AMDEK 710 Color Monitor 5899
GENOA Spectrum $269
MYLEX Chairman 5299
SIGMA COLOR 400 (Specify Monitor) $479
C0LOR400WPGSSR-12 $999
COLOR 400 w ' TAXAN 640 $939
PERSYST Bob with PGS MD-12 Hi-Res RGB
Color Monitor gives 690x400 resolution making
this best combination value $699
CHIPS ETCT
5219
CALL
CALL
CALL
CALL
520/540
HIGHEST
QUALITY!
Major
Brands
64KRAMSet 57 10+ Sets 56 50+ $5
i28KRAMSet 535 10+ Sets 533 50+ 530
256KRAMSet 530 10+ Sets 528 50+ 525
8087 Maths Co-Processor Best Price
80287-3 for IBM AT REDUCED 5239
ORCHID PCturbow/ 128k 5549
Latest Version w/640k 5599
OUADRAM QUADspnnt REDUCED 5499
COMPANY POLICY Mir order $100 Pros & avatabtty suttBct to change V* slip UPS -only Shnxng/hanriing charges vary
Prices reflect cash discount on rxepad orders Add 1 % tor COO orders 3% tor MC7VISA & 5% tor AMEx COD requires cashiers
check At meroiardse sold s new and al sates are final Refused shpmerts subject to 20% charge (Mm $50 1 Products shaped '"
factory cartons come wtti manufacturer warranty For others inducing IBM systems can tech support tor return auth #tor warranty
recars Non-detective «ems returned as defective suttee! to 10% service charge* Mm $501 Not responsible tor hardware or software
ampatirjlrtyot any product No open acct PO's or foreign orders Noshowroom. demonstrators or watk-in sates Personal a company
checks take 3 weeks to dear FOR ADVANCE PAYMENTS or PICKUP PLEASE CALL FIRST FOR WORKOROER I
MODEMS
EasyData I2B 300/1200 Bd Int w/PCTalk III $199
SmarTEAM212A1200BdExtw/osft $209
HAYES 1200 B w/SmarlCom II $329
HAYES 1200 Ext, w/o Software $359
Smartcomll 589 NEW 2400 Bd Ext 5549
HAYES Transet 1000 "REDUCED" 5299
POPC0MC-150lntw/PFS:Access 5289
POPCOM X-150 Ext w/PFS Access 5299
AST Reach 1 1200 Bd short card w/Crosstalk 5329
PROMETHEUS PROMODEM 1 200 Ext 5269
Options Processor 579 w/ Modem 565
Alphanum Display 579 w/ Modem 565
New Cdmm Buffer tor 1 200 Ext CALL
PROMODEM 1200 B Int w/MITE software 5229
OUADMODEM II shortcard w/Crosstalk XVI $299
2400 Bd Upgrade Kit for Quadmodem II CALL
Ven-Tel Half Card w/Crosstalk XVI $349
1200 Plus Ext w/o software $349
BIZCOMP IntelliModem EXT 5319
ST/XL/XT $289/5319/5359
WATSON integrated Voice Oata Modem CALL
EVEREX 1 200B Internal w/software $249
US ROBOTICS Complete Line CALL
SPECIAL ITEMS
OBERON OMNI READER
A must for any one using word processing
Works like a scanner, transferring text from
paper to your computer Reads cdmmon type
laces Will save hours ot laborious typing. It is a
great technological breakthrough at a very rea-
sonable price Comes complete with interlace
and sdftware fdr your cdmputer $499
IBM TERMINAL 3161 CALL
IBM TERMINAL 3163 CALL
GENERAL Parametric's VideoShow CALL
CHORUS PHOTOBASE/PC-EYE CALL
MISC. ADD ONS
CABLE Parallel. 6 ft $20 10 ft $25
Serial. 6 ft $25
Keyboard Extension. 6 ft $10
0RCHI0PCturbow/128k $549
Latest Version w/640k $599
HAYES Transet 1000 REDUCED $299
QUADRAM QUADspnnt $499
MOUSE SYSTEMS PC Mouse w/PC Paint $129
PC Mouse w/PC Paintbrush $129
MICROSOFT MOUSE w/PC Paintbrush
Bus/Serial $129/5139
KEYTRONIC KB 5151 $165
KB5!53Tw/TouchPad CALL
AB/ABC/ABCD Switch Boxes CALL
COMPUTER ACCESSORIES P 1 2-3 $299
POWER DIRECTOR P-2W/5 outlets 599
POWER DIRECTOR P-12W/6 outlets 5129
KENSINGTON Master Piece (5 outlets I 589
KENSINGTON Universal Printer Stand 520
KENSINGTON Master Piece Plus CALL
STANDBY PWR SUPPLY w/surge protection
300 Wans 5339
500 Watts 5599
800 Wans (Sine Wave) 5699
QUADRAM Microtazer 8k 5129 128k 5149
TILT/SWIVEL Monitor Pedestal 520
POWER SUPPLY 130 Wans 589
POWER SUPPLY 1 50 Warts 599
EVEREX Expansion Chassis Half Height 5699
EVEREX Expansion Chassis Full Height 5749
| 406-C CONSTITUTION AVE., CAMARILLO, CA 93010
805-987-7015
WHEN ORDERING PLEASE REFER TO AD #B807
470 B YTE • DECEMBER
Try It.
Then Buy It.
PC-Write.
A fast, full-featured word
processing package for the
unbelievable price of $10.
Complete. You get a manual
on disk, mail merge, split
screen, keyboard macros,
on-screen formatting, full
printer support, and more.
Try PC-Write for $10.
Then register for $75 to get:
• latest diskette
• printed manual
• two updates
• phone support
• newsletter
Registration supports our
"shareware" concept that
keeps our prices low, and
allows our development of
PC-Write enhancements.
Shareware means you can
get PC-Write from a friend
or user group to try, and
give away copies yourself.
Then register if you like it.
No risk!
Byte
December 85
Now you can
use the same
editor for all your work,
both programs and manuals.
Watch for version 2.6 soon.
A perfect Christmas gift!
We'll send it and include
a nice card in your name.
Order PC-Write Today.
Satisfaction Guaranteed.
(206) 282-0452
219 First N. #224y
1 Seattle, WA 98109
Inquiry 426
EPROM
PROGRAMMER
APROTEK 1000
riin $265. 00
"— I jj l—l COMPLETE WITH
PERSONALITY
MODULE
1 I 7 VOLT AC POWER-RS232
•6 BAUD RATES - HANDSHAKE TO HOST
ALLOWS READ, WRITE, VERIFY & COPY
Comes complete with a CPM, IBM-PC or Apple
Driver Program on Disc.
Programs the following 5 Volt 24 or 28 pin
devices: 2716 series through 27256, 25xx series,
68764 plus others. Please Specify Personality
Module desired with order. Additional Personality
Modules only $15.00 ea. Full 1 year warranty-
TO ORDER: CALL 1 800 962 5800 OR WRITE
APROTEK
1071-A AVENIDA ACASO Add
CAMARILLO, CA 93010 S4 00 Shipi
Info: [805) 987 2454 VISA or MC Add 3%
Inquiry 24
_______ SINGLE
M68000 board
COMPUTER
On board 6-10 MHz CPU. 20K RAM. 32K EPROM.
two RS-232. 16-bit port. 5-counter/timers
expandable via Memory/FDC Board.
M68K CPU (bare board) % 89.95
M68K CPU A&T (6MHz) S495.00
MD512K Memory/FDC (bare board) $ 89.95
MD512K Memory/FDC (128K) $495.00
FDC/Hard Disk interface option $150.00
M68KE Enclosure w/power supply $249.00
M68K Monitor EPROM 's $ 95.00
M68K Macro Cross Assembler $195.00
4XF0RTH OS w/assembler. editor $295.00
CP/M 68K OS »/"C" compiler $395.00
pWO Educational P.O. Box 16115
§-• I V| ^% Microcomputei Irvine, CA 92713
1— ii. w M.\J Systems (714)854-8545
Inquiry 129
WHOLESALE
AST 6-PACK + 64K $239
ANCHOR VOLKSMOOEM 12 . . . 164
AUTOCAD CALL
(DIGITIZERS, PLOTTERS) PENCEPT. HOUSTON.
HITACHI, CALCOMP. NICOLET. ENTER. GTCO
JUKI 6300 639
MAC 3.5 FLOPPY DRIVE 279
CALL FOR LATEST PRICE
APPLE
AXIOM
CITIZEN
C. ITOH
COMPAC
EPSON
ENTER
HAYES
IBM
JUKI
LEGEND
LOTUS
NEC
NOVATION
PANASONIC
PARADISE
PRINCETON
SILVER REED
TAXAN
TOSHIBA
VENTEL
MICROPRO ZENITH
MINORITY INDUSTRIES
5021 N. 20th SI.. (10261. Pho
ORDERS ONLY 1
OTHER INFORMATION (
Inquiry 250
1-800-428-7979
(602) 890-0596
R . D - Q . CABLES
3021 PURDUE ROAD
DAYTON, OHIO 45420
No higher* quail i •£ y
computer* cabl es on
the man- l< e *; today! !
METALIZED MOODS
FULLY SHIELDED
ROSITI«~»E STRAIN
REL I EZF
l o o v: o u a rant eed
6' IBM PARALLEL CENTRONICS *17.00
6' IBM SERIAL PRINTER CABLE *17.00
6- IBM SERIAL FOR MODEM *17.00
o' STRAIGHT PARALLEL CENTR0NI CS-*1 8.00
i' RS232C *17.00
IF THERE IS A CABLE
NEEDED, F» . © . O ■ CAN
CONSTRUCT AND
GUARANTEE IT!
CALL
<C 51 3 > 25*» — ST* 5 5
Inquiry 282
ATTENTION
MEGABYTERS
Let your PC grow!
Vfeature
for IBM AT, XT and compatibles
supports BIG disks
secures disk data.
Vfeature operates with AT ami XT-compatible
hard disk controllers.
Golden Bow Systems
$80.00
Add S3 !0: srupoing/
handling
C actor ma residents add
6% sales tai
Second Ave., Suite F
San Diego, CA 92103
(619) 298-9349
Inquiry !55
Erases Most Eproms
in 3 Minutes ^
I
-•*«*
Solid State 2-8 Min.
Timer Version $54.95
For all 24 or 28 pin devices— 2 at a time
90 DAY WARRANTEE SHIPPING & HANOLING
DEALERS WELCOME
WdLLIIIG CO.
$2 50
AZ RESIDENTS
ADD 6*o TAX
4401 S. JUNIPER • TEMPE. AZ 85282 • (602) 838-1 277
Inquiry 372
4164 2oons 490 41256 isons $2.95
STATIC RAMS
2101
256x4
(450ns)
1.95
5101
256«4
{450ns){CMOSI
3.95
2102L-4
1024»1
(450ns)ILP)
.99
2102L 2
1024x1
(250ns)(LP|
1.45
2112
256x4
(450ns)
299
2114
1024x4
(450ns)
.99
2114L-4
1024x4
(450ns)(LP)
1.09
21141-2
1024x4
(200ns)(LP)
1.49
2114L-15
1024x4
(150ns)|LP)
1.95
TMS4044-4
4096x1
(450ns)
1.95
TMM2016-150
2048x8
(150ns)
1.49
TMM2016 100
2048x8
(100ns)
195
HM6116-4
2048x8
(200nsl(CMOS)
1 39
HM6116 3
2048x8
(ISOnsl(CMOS)
1.49
HM6116LP-4
2048x8
(200ns)(CMOS)(LP)
149
HM6116LP-3
2048x8
(150ns)(CMOS)(LP)
159
HM6116LP2
2048x8
8192x8
(120ns)(CMOS)(LP)
|150ns)ICMOS)
295
3.89
HM6264P-15
HIH6264LP 15
8192x8
(150ns)(CMOS)ILP|
3.95
HM6264LP 12
8192x8
(120ns)(CMOS)(LP)
449
LP- Low power
DYNAMIC RAMS
16384x1 |250ns>
49
4116-250
4116 200
16384x1
(200ns)
69
4116-150
4116-120
16384x1
16384x1
(150nsl
89
(120ns)
1.49 1
NIK4332
32768x1
(200ns)
6 .95
4164-200
65536x1
(2O0ns)(5V)
49
4164 150
65536x1
(150ns)(5V)
69
4164-120
65536x1
|120ns)(5V)
1 95
MCIW6665
65536x1
(200nsl(5V)
1 95
TMS4164
65536x1
(150ns)(5V)
1 95
4164 REFRESH
65536x1
16384x4
(150nsl|5V)|REFRESH) 2 95 1
(150nsl(5VI 495 |
TMS4416
41128-150
131072x1
|150ns||5V|
5.95 1
41256-200
262144x1
(200ns)(5V)
295
41256 150
262144x1
(150ns)(5V)
295
SV= Single 5 Volt Supply
REFRESH-Pin 1 Refresh
• ** •HIGH-TECH* •**
NECV20 /PD70108 $2095
REPLACES 8088 TO SPEED UP IBM PC 10-40%
* HIGH SPEED ADDRESS CALCULATION
IN HARDWARE
* PIN COMPATIBLE WITH 8088
* SUPERSET OF 8086/8088 INSTRUCTION
SET
LOW POWER CMOS
• •••SPOTLIGHT****
ORDER TOLL FREE
TmnRT;liTiTiTi
800-662-6279!
EPROMS
2708
1024x8
|450ns)
3.95
2716 6
2048x8
(650ns)
2.29
2716
2048x8
.450ns)(5V
1.95
2716 1
2048x8
(350ns)(5V)
2.49
TMS2532
4096x8
450nsl(5V
3.95
2732
4096x8
(450ns)(5V)
2.29
2732A
4096x8
(250ns||5V)(21VPGM!
2.69
2732A 2
4096x8
(200ns)(5V||21VPGIVI|
395
27C64
8192x8
<250nsll5V)(CMOS)
595
2764
8192x8
(450ns)(5V)
1 95
2764-250
8192x8
(250ns)(5V)
2.49
2764 200
8192x8
(200ns)(5V)
349
TMS2564
8192x8
l450ns)|5V|
895
MCM68766
8192x8
l350ns)|5V)(24 PINI
1795
27128
16384x8
l250ns)(5V)
279
27C256
32768x8
l250ns)(5V>(CMOS>
12.95
27256
32768x8
■ 250nsli5V
7.49
- 5V Single
5 Vott Supply
21V PGM=Program at 21 Volts J
D corporation EPROM ERASERS
Model
Timer
Capacity
Chip
Intensity
(uW/Cm'|
Unit
Price
PE-14
NO
9
8,000
$83.00
PE-14T
YES
9
8.000
S1 19.00
PE 24T
YES
12
9.600
S175.00
r 8000
8035
1.49
8039
1.95
8080
2 95
8085
2.49
I 8087 2
139 95
8087
109.00
8088
6.95
8088-2
9.95
8155
2.49
8155-2
3.95
8748
7.95
8755
19.95
80286
129.95
I 80287
185.00 J
8200
8203
29.95
8205
3.29
8212
1 49
8216
1 49
8224
225
8237
495
82375
5.49
8250
6.95
8251
1.69
8251 A
1.89
8253
1.89
8253 5
1 95
8255
1 69
8255 5
1 89
8259
1.95
8259 5
229
8272
495
8279
249
8279-5
2.95
8282
3.95
8284
2.95
8286
3.95
8288
495
" 6500 1
1.0MHZ
6502
2.79
65C02
IMOS] 12.95
6507
9.95
6520
1.95
6522
4.95
6526
26.95
6532
6.95
6545
6.95
6551
5.95
6561
19.95
6581
34.95
2.0 MHZ
6502A
2.95
6520A
2.95
6522A
5.95
6532A
11.95
6545A
7.95
6551 A
6.95
3.0 MHZ
6502B
6.95 J
CRT
CONTROLLERS
6845
4 95
68B45
8.95
6847
11 95
HD46505SP
695
MC1372
2.95
8275
2695
7220
19 95
CRT5027
12.95
CRT5037
995
TMS9918A
19 95
Z-80
4.0 MHZ
Z80A CPU
Z80A CTC
Z80A DART
Z80A-DMA
Z80A PIO
Z80A-SIO
Z80A SIO 1
Z80A SIO 2
6.0 MHZ
Z BOB CPU
Z80B-CTC
Z80B PIO
Z80B DART
Z80B SIO
Z80B SIO 2
. Z8671 ZILOG
1 89
1 96
595
5.95
1 95
5.95
595
5.95
4.95
8.95
8.95
14.95
12 95
12.95
19 95 ,
' 6800
1.0 MHZ
6800
1 95
6802
4.95
6803
995
6809
5 95
6809E
5.95
6810
1.95
6820
2.95
6821
1 96
6840
6.95
6843
19.95
6844
12 95
6845
496
6847
11 95
6850
1.95
6883
22.95
2.0 MHZ
68B00
4.95
68B02
595
68B09E
795
68B09
795
68B21
495
68B45
895
68B50
395
. 68B54
795
DISK
CONTROLLERS
1771
4.95
1791
995
1793
9.95
1795
12.95
1797
12.95
2791
19.95
2793
19.95
2797
29.95
6843
19.95
8272
4.95
UPD765
4.95
MB8876
12.95
MB8877
12.95
1691
6.95
.2143
6.95 J
BIT RATE
GENERATORS
IVIC14411
BR1941
4702
COM8116
, MM5307
9.95
4.95
995
8.95
4.95 .
UARTS
AY5-1013
395
AY3-1015
495
TR1602
3.95
2651
495
IM6402
695
IM6403
9.95
INS8250
695
' CRYSTALS '
32 768 KHz
95
1.0 MHz
2.95
1 .8432
295
2.0
1 95
2 097152
1.95
24576
1 95
32768
1 95
3579545
1 95
4.0
1 95
4032
1 95
5.0
1.95
50688
1 95
6.0
1 95
6144
1 95
65536
1.95
8.0
1.95
10.0
1 95
10.738635
1.95
12.0
1.95
14.31818
1 95
15.0
1 95
16.0
1 95
17 430
1 95
18
1 95
18.432
1 95
200
1 95
22 1184
1 95
24.0
1 95
320
1 95
CRYSTAL
OSCILLATORS
1.0MHz
595
1 8432
5.95
2.0
5.95
24576
5.95
2.5
4.95
4.0
4.95
5 0688
495
6.0
4.95
6144
4.95
80
4.95
10
495
12.0
4.95
12.480
495
15.0
495
16.0
495
18.432
495
20.0
4.95
.24.0
4 95
CLOCK
CIRCUITS
MM5369 1.95
MM5369 EST 1.95
MM58167 12.95
MM58174 11.95
. MSM5832 2.9S A
SOUND CHIPS
76477
76489
SSI -263
AY3-8910
AY38912
. SP1000
3.95
895
39 95
12.95
12 95
39.00 .
' MISC
TMS99531
9-95
TMS99532
19 95
ULN2003
.79
3242
7.95
3341
4.95
MC3470
1.95
MC3480
895
MC3487
295
11C90
13.95
2513-001 UP
695
AY5-2376
11 95
AY5-3600 PRO 1 1 95 J
74LS00
74LS00
16
74LS165
.65
74LS01
18
74LS166
.95
74LS02
17
74LS169
.95
74LS03
18
74LS173
49
74LS04
16
74LS174
.39
74LS05
18
74LS175
39
74LS08
18
74LS191
.49
74LS09
18
74LS192
69
74LS10
16
74LS193
69
74LS1 1
22
74LS194
69
74LS12
22
74LS195
69
74LS13
26
74LS196
.59
74LS14
39
74LS197
.59
74LS15
26
74LS221
.59
74LS20
17
74LS240
.69
74LS21
22
74LS241
69
74LS22
22
74LS242
69
74LS27
23
74LS243
69
74LS28
26
74LS244
69
74LS30
17
74LS245
.79
74LS32
18
74LS251
49
74LS33
28
74LS253
49
74LS37
26
74LS256
1 79
741S38
26
74LS257
39
74LS42
39
74LS258
49
74LS47
59
74LS259
1 29
74LS48
69
74LS260
49
74LS51
17
74LS266
39
74LS73
29
74LS273
.79
74LS74
24
74LS279
.39
74LS75
29
74LS280
1 98
74LS76
29
74LS283
59
74LS83
49
74LS290
.89
74LS85
49
74LS293
89
74LS86
22
74LS299
1 49
74LS90
39
74LS322
3.95
74LS92
49
74LS323
2.49
74LS93
39
74LS364
1 95
74LS95
49
74LS365
.39
74LS107
34
74LS367
.39
74LS109
36
74LS368
.39
74LS112
29
74LS373
79
74LS122
45
74LS374
79
74LS123
49
74LS375
.95
74LS124 2
75
74LS377
.79
74LS125
39
74LS378
1.18
74LS126
39
74LS390
1.19
74LS132
39
74LS393
.79
74LS133
49
74LS541
1.49
74LS136
39
74LS624
1.95
74LS138
39
74LS640
99
74LS139
39
74LS645
99
74LS145
99
74LS669
1.29
74LS147
99
74LS670
89
74LS148
99
74LS682
3.20
74LS151
39
74LS683
320
74LS153
39
74LS684
3.20
74LS154 1
49
74LS688
240
74LS155
59
74LS783 22 96
74LS156
49
81LS95
1.49
74LS157
35
81LS96
1-49
74LS158
29
81LS97
1 49
74LS160
29
81LS98
1.49
74LS161
39
25LS2521 2 80
74LS162
49
25LS2569 2.80
74LS163
39
26LS31
1 95
74LS164
49
26LS32
1 95
HIGH SPEED CMOS
A new family o
high speed CMOS logic featuring
the speed of tow
power
Schottky (8ns typical gate
propagation delay), combined with the advantages of
CMOS very low power consumption, superior noise
immunity, and im
proved output drive
74HC00
74HC: Operate at CMOS logic levels and are ideal
tor new, all-CMOS destg
is
74HC00
59
74HC148
1.19
74HC02
59
74HC151
.89
74HC04
59
74HC154
249
74HC08
59
74HC157
89
74HC10
59
74HC158
.95
74HC14
-79
74HC163
1.15
74HC20
59
74HC175
99
74HC27
59
74HC240
1 89
74HC30
59
74HC244
1 89
74HC32
.69
74HC245
1 89
74HC51
59
74HC257
.85
74HC74
.75
74HC259
1 39
74HC85
1 35
74HC273
1 89
74HC86
69
74HC299
499
74HC93
1.19
74HC368
99
74HC107
79
74HC373
2.29
74HC109
79
74HC374
2.29
74HC112
79
74HC390
1.39
74HC125
1.19
74HC393
1.39
74HC132
1 19
74HC4017
1.99
74HC133
69
74HC4020
1.39
74HC138
99
74HC4049
89
74HC139
99
74HC4050
.89
74HCT00
74HCT: Dired
. drop-
n replacements for LS TTL
and can be intermixed with 74LS in the same circuit
74HCT00
69
74HCT166
3.05
74HCT02
69
74HCT174
1.09
74HCT04
69
74HCT193
1.39
74HCT08
.69
74HCT194
1.19
74HCT10
69
74HCT240
2.19
74HCT11
69
74HCT241
2.19
74HCT27
69
74HCT244
2.19
74HCT30
69
74HCT245
2 19
74HCT32
79
74HCT257
99
74HCT74
85
74HCT259
1.59
74HCT75
.95
74HCT273
2.09
74HCT138
1.15
74HCT367
1 09
74HCT139
1.15
74HCT373
2.49
74HCT154
2.99
74HCT374
249
74HCT157
99
74HCT393
1 59
74HCT158
99
74HCT4017
2.19
74HCT161
1 29
74HCT4040
1 59
74HCT164
1.39
74HCT4060
1 49
74F00
74F00
69
74F74 .79
74F251 1.69
74F02
69
74F86 .99
74F253 1.69
74F04
79
74F138 1.69
74F257 1.69
74F08
69
74F139 1 69
74F280 1.79
74F10
69
74F157 1 69
74F283 3.95
74F32
69
74F240 3 29
74F373 4 29
74F64
89
74F244 3.29
74F374 4.29
VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE LOCATED AT 1256 SOUTH BASCOM AVENUE IN SAN JOSE
JDR Microdevices
1224 S. Bascom Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128
800-538-5000 • 800-662-6279 (CA) • (408) 995-5430
FAX (408) 275-8415 • Telex 171-110
TU-TH, 9-9
HOURS: M-W-F, 9-5 TU-TH, 9-9 SAT, 10-3
PLEASE USE YOUR CUSTOMER NUMBER WHEN ORDERING
TERMS: Minimum order $10.00. For shippino and handing Include S2J30 lor UPS
Ground and S3 50 lor UPS Air. Orders over 1 lb. and foreign order* may require
additional shipping charges - please contact our sales department for the amount C A.
residents must Include applicable sales lax. All merchandise Is warranted for 90 days
unless otherwise stated. Prices are subject to change without notice. We are not
responsible for typographical errors. We reserve the tight to limit quantities and to
substitute manufacturer. All merchandise subject to prior sale.
©COPYRIGHT 1985 JDR MICRODEVICES. INC.
THE JDR MICRODEVICES LOGO IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF JDR MICRODEVICES. JDR INSTRUMENTS AND JDR MICRODEVICES ARE TRADEMARKS OF JDR MICRODEVICES.
IBM IS A TRADEMARK OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES APPLE IS A TRADEMARK OF APPLE COMPUTER
472 B YTE • DECEMBER
Inquiry 193
PARTIAL LISTING ONLY — CALL FOR A FREE CATALOG
CMOS
7400/9000
4001
.19
14419
4.95
7400
19
74147
2.49
4011
.19
14433
1496
7402
.19
74148
1.20
4012
.25
4503
49
7404
.19
74150
1.35
4013
35
451 1
.69
7406
29
74151
.55
4015
.29
4516
.79
7407
.29
74153
.55
4016
.29
4S18
.85
7408
24
74154
1.49
4017
.49
4522
.79
7410
.19
74155
.75
4018
.69
4526
.79
7411
.25
74157
.55
4020
.59
4527
1.95
7414
.49
74159
1.65
4021
69
4528
79
7416
.25
74161
.69
4024
49
4529
295
7417
25
74163
.69
4025
.25
4532
1.95
7420
.19
74164
.85
4027
.39
4538
95
7423
.29
74165
.85
4028
.65
4541
1.29
7430
.19
74166
1.00
4035
.69
4553
579
7432
.29
74175
.89
4040
69
4585
.75
7438
29
74177
.75
4041
.75
4702
12 95
7442
49
74178
1.15
4042
.59
74C00
29
7445
69
74181
2.25
4043
.85
74C14
59
7447
89
74182
.75
4044
.69
74C74
S9
7470
.35
74184
2.00
4045
1 98
74C83
1 95
7473
34
74191
1.15
4046
.69
74C85
1 49
7474
33
74192
.79
4047
.69
74C95
99
7475
45
74194
.85
4049
.29
74C150
5.75
7476
35
74196
.79
4050
.29
74C151
2.25
7483
50
74197
.75
4051
.69
74C161
.99
7485
59
74199
135
4052
69
74C163
99
7486
35
74221
1.35
4053
.69
74C164
1 39
7489
2.15
74246
1 35
4056
2.19
74C192
1.49
7490
39
74247
1.25
4060
.69
74C193
1 49
7492
.50
74248
1.85
4066
.29
74C221
1.75
7493
35
74249
195
4065
19
74C240
1.89
7495
55
74251
75
4076
.59
74C244
1 89
7497
2 75
74265
1.35
4077
.29
74C374
1 99
74100
2 29
74273
1.95
4081
22
74C905 10.95
74121
.29
74278
3.11
4085
.79
74C911
8 95
74123
.49
74367
.65
4086
.89
74C917
8.95
74125
45
74368
.65 I
4093
.49
74C922
449
74141
.65
9368
3.95 I
4094
2.49
74C923
4.95
74143
595
9602
1.50 I
14411
9.95
74C926
795
74144
2.95
9637
2.95 I
14412
6.95
80C97
95
74145
.60
96S02
1.95 J
74S00
74SO0
29
74S163
1.29
74S02
.29
74S168
3.95
74S03
.29
74S174
.79
74S04
.29
74S175
.79
74S05
.29
74S188
1.95
74S08
.35
74S189
1.95
74S10
.29
74S195
1.49
74S15
.35
74S196
1.49
74S30
.29
74S197
1.49
74S32
.35
74S226
3.99
74S37
.69
74S240
1.49
74S38
69
74S241
1.49
74S74
.49
74S244
1.49
74S85
.95
74S257
.79
74S86
35
74S253
.79
74S112
SO
74S258
.95
74S124
2.75
74S280
1.95
74S138
.79
74S287
1.69
74S140
55
74S288
1.69
74S151
.79
74S299
2.95
74S153
.79
74S373
1.69
74S157
.79
74S374
1.69
74S158
95
74S471
4.95
74S161
1.29
74S571
2.95 J
DATA ACQ
INTERFACE
AOC0800 15.55
8T26
1.29
AOC0804 3.49
8T28
1.29
ADC0809 4.49
8T95
.89
ADC0816 14.95
8T96
89
ADC0817 9.95
8T97
.59
ADC0831 8.95
8T98
89
DAC0800 44f
DM8131
2.95
DAC0806 1 .95
DP8304
2.29
DAC0808 2.95
DS8833
2.25
OAC1020 8.25
DS8835
1 99
DAC1022 5.95
DS8836
.99
MC1408L8 2 95
OS8837
1 65
' EDBECARD CONNECTORS '
100
PIN
ST
S 100
125
3.95
100
PIN
WW
S 100
125
4.95
62
PIN
ST
IBM PC
.100
1 95
50
PIN
ST
APPLE
100
2 95
44
PIN
ST
STD
.156
1.95
.44
PIN
WW
STD
156
4.95
r 36 PIN CENTRONICS
MILE
IDCEN36 RIBBON CABLE
6.95
CEN36 SOLDER CUP
4.95
CEN36PC RT ANGLE PC MOUNT
495
PBMU
IOCEN36 F RIBBON CABLE
7.95
INTERSIL
ICL7106
ICL7107
ICL7660
ICL8038
ICM7207A
k ICM7208
9.95
12.95
295
4.95
5.95
15.95 ,
VOLTAGE
REGULATORS
TO 220 CASE
7805T 49 7905T .59
7808T .49 7908T .59
7812T .49 7912T .59
781ST .49 7915T .59
TO 3 CASE
7805K 1.39 7905K 1.49
7812K 1 39 7912K 1.49
TO 92 CASE
78L05 .49 79L05 .69
78L12 .49 79L12 .69
OTHER VOLTAGE REGS
LM323K5V 3A TO 3 4.79
LM338KA45A TO 3 3.95
78H05K5V 5A TO 3 7.95
78H12K12V5A TO 3 8.95
fc 78P05K 5V 10A TO-3 14.95
[ IC SOCKETS
1-99
100
8 PIN ST
.13
.11
14 PIN ST
.15
.12
16 PIN ST
.17
.13
18 PIN ST
.20
.18
20 PIN ST
.29
.27
22 PIN ST
.30
.27
24 PIN ST
.30
.27
28 PIN ST
40
.32
40 PIN ST
49
.39
64 PIN ST
4.25
CALL
ST=SOLOERTAIL
8 PIN WW
.59
.49
14 PIN WW
.69
.52
16 PIN WW
.69
58
18 PIN WW
.99
.90
20 PIN WW
1.09
98
22 PIN WW
1 39
1 28
24 PIN WW
1.49
1.35
28 PIN WW
1 69
1.49
40 PIN WW
1 99
1.80
WW WIREWRAP
16 PIN ZIF
4.95
CALL
24 PIN ZIF
595
CALL
28 PIN ZIF
6.95
CALL
40 PIN ZIF
995
CALL
ZIF=TEXTOOL
IZERO INSERTION FORCE)
LINEAR
I TL066
.99
LM733
.98
1 TL071
69
LM741
29
1 TL072
1 09
LM747
.69
I TL074
1.95
LM748
59
I TL081
59
MCI 330
1 69
I TL082
99
MCI 350
1.19
I TL084
1.49
MC1372
6.95
I LM301
.34
LM1414
1.59
LM309K
1.25
LM1458
.49
LM311
.59
LM1488
.49
LM311H
89
LM1489
49
LM317K
349
LM1496
85
LM317T
95
LM1812
8.25
LM318
1.49
LM1889
1.95
LM319
1.25
ULN2003
79
LM320 SM79O0
XR2206
3.75
LM322
1.65
XR2211
2.95
LM323K
4.79
XR2240
1.95
LM324
49
MPQ2907
1 95
LM331
3.95
LM2917
1.95
LM334
1.19
CA3046
89
LM335
1.40
CA3081
99
LM336
1.75
CA3082
99
LM337K
3.95
CA3086
80
LM338K
3.95
CA3089
1 95
LM339
.59
CA3130E
99
LM340 SM78O0
CA3146
1 29
LM350T
460
CA3160
1.19
LF353
59
MC3470
1.95
LF356
.99
MC3480
8.95
LF367
99
MC3487
295
LM358
59
LM3900
49
LM380
.89
LM3909
98
LM383
1.95
LM3911
225
LM386
.89
LM3914
2.39
LM393
.45
MC4024
3.49
LM394H
4.60
MC4044
3.99
TL494
4.20
RC4136
1.25
TL497
3.25
RC4558
.69
NE555
.29
LM 13600
1.49
NE556
.49
75107
1.49
NE558
1.29
75110
1.95
NE564
1 95
75150
1.95
LM565
.95
75154
1.95
LM566
1 49
75188
1.25
LM567
79
75189
1.25
NE570
2.95
75451
.39
NE590
250
75452
.39
NE592
98
75453
.39
LM710
75
75477
1.29
LM723
49
75492
.79
H=TO-5 CAN. K
TO-3. T=TO-220
DIPCC
INNECTORS
DESCRIPTION
ORDER BV
CONTACTS
8
14
16
18
20
22
24
28
40
HIGH RELIABILITY TOOLED
ST IC SOCKETS
AUGATxxST
62
.79
.89
1.09
1.29
1.39
1.49
1 69
2.49
HIGH RELIABILITY TOOLED
WW IC SOCKETS
AUGATxxWW
1 30
1.80
2.10
240
2.50
2.90
3.15
3.70
5.40
COMPONENT CARRIES
(DIP HEADERS!
ICCxx
.49
.59
69
.99
.99
.99
.99
1 09
1.49
RIBBON CABLE
DIP PLUGS (IDC)
IDPxx
.95
.95
-
-
1.75
...
2.95
.-■—•*■-
e
FOR ORDERING INS TRuC TiQNS SEE D-SUBMINIA TuRE BELOW
AUGAT 24ST
o-s
UBMINII
TURI
E
DESCRIPTION
ORDER BY
CONTACTS
9
15
19
25
37
50
SOLDER CUP
MALE
OBxxP
.82
90
1
25
1.25
1.80
3.48
FEMALE
DBxxS
95
115
1
50
1 50
2.35
4.32
RIGHT ANGLE
PC SOLDER
MALE
DBxxPH
1.20
1.49
1.95
2.65
FEMALE
DBxxSR
1.25
1.55
200
2.79
WIRE WRAP
MALE
DBxxPWW
1.69
2 56
389
5.60
FEMALE
OBxxSWW
2.76
4.27
6.84
995
IDC
RIBBON CABLE
MALE
IDBxxP
2.70
295
3.98
5.70
FEMALE
IDBxxS
292
3.20
4.33
676
HOODS
METAL
MHOODxx
1.25
1.25
1
30
1.30
GREY
HOODxx
65
.65
.65
75
.95
ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS: INSERT THE NUMBER OF CONTACTS IN THE POSITION
MARKED "xx OF THE ORDER BY PART NUMBER LISTED.
I EXAMPLE A 15 PIN RIGHT ANGLE MALE PC SOLDER WOULD BE DBJ5PR
MOUN T IHG HARDWARE S1.
IOC CONNECTORS
DESCRIPTION
ORDER BY
CONTACTS
10
20
26
34
40
50
SOLDER HEADER
IDHxxS
.82
1.29
1.68
2.20
2.58
3-24
RIGHT ANGLE SOLDER HEADER
IDHxxSR
.85
1.35
1.76
2.31
2.72
3.39
WW HEADER
IDH..W
1.86
2 98
384
4.50
5.28
6.63
RIGHT ANGLE WW HEADER
IDHxxWR
2.05
3.28
4.22
4.45
4.80
730
RIBBON HEADER SOCKET
IDSxx
.79
.99
1.39
1.59
1.99
2 25J
RIBBON HEADER
IDMxx
—
5.50
6.25
7.00
7.50
8.50
RIBBON EDGE CARD
IDE XX
1 75
2 25
2.65
2.75
380
3.95
FOR ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS SEE D-SUBMINIA TURE ABOVE
HARD TO FIND
"SNAPABLE" HEADERS
CAN BE SNAPPED APART TO
MAKE ANY SIZE HEADER.
ALL WITH .1" CENTERS
1<40 STRAIGHT LEAD .99
1x40 RIGHT ANGLE 1.49
2x40 STRAIGHT LEAD 2.49
. 2x40 RIGHT ANGLE 2.99
SHORTING
BLOCKS
GOLD
CONTACTS
SPACED
5/S1.00
Let, me tell you how much I appreciate your
Sales & Customer Service staffs . My recent
orderwas filled in amost courteous & prompt
manner & I will deal withyou in the future to
the exclusion of other similar firms who
obviously don't need customers botherin
them . Thank you ,
f-K-
CALL FOR VOLUME QUOTES
' DIODES/OPTO/TRANSISTORS '
1N751
.25
4N26
69
1N759
25
4N27
.69
1N4148
25
1.00
4N28
.69
1N4004
10
1.00
4N33
.89
1NS402
.25
4N37
1.19
KBP04
.55
MCT-2
.59
KBU8A
95
MCT-6
1.29
MDA990-2
.35
TIL-111
.99
N2222
.25
2N3906
.10
PN2222
10
2N4401
.25
2N2905
50
2N4402
.25
2N2907
25
2N4403
.25
2N3055
.79
2N6045
1.75
12N3904
10
TIP31
.49 J
LED DISPLAYS
FND-357(359I
FND-500I503)
FND-507I510I
MAN 72
MAN-74
MAN 8940
TIL-313
HP50827760
TIL-311
HP5082-7340
COM
COM
COM
COM
COM
COM
COM
COM
4x7 HEX
4x7 HEX
CATHODE .362"
CATHODE .5"
CATHODE .5"
ANODE .3"
CATHODE .3"
CATHODE .8"
CATHODE .3"
CATHODE 43"
W/ LOGIC .270"
W LOGIC .290"
1.25
1.49
1 49
.99
.99
1.99
.45
1.29
9.95
7.95
DIFFUSED LEDS
JUMBO RED
JUMBO GREEN
JUMBO YELLOW
MOUNTING HDW
.MINI RED
1-99
.10
TIM
T1V.
100-UP
.09
12
09
SWITCHES
SPST MINI TOGGLE ON ON
1.25
DPDT MINI TOGliLE ON ON
1 50
DPDT MINI-TOGGLE ON OFF ON
1 75
SPST MINI PUSHBUTTON NO
39
SPST MINI-PUSHBUTTON N.C
39
SPST TOGGLE ON OFF
.49
BCD OUTPUT 10 POSITION 6 PIN DIP
1 95
DIP SWITCHES
4 POSITION 85 7 POSITION
.95
5 POSITION .90 8 POSITION
95
6 POSITION .90 10 POSITION
1.29
Chapel Hil]
© COPYRIGHT 1985 JDR MICRODf VICES
i
IBBON CAB
LE
CONTACTS
SINGLE COLOR
COLOR CODED
1'
10'
1'
10'
10
.18
1.60
30
2.75
16
28
2.50
48
4.40
20
.36
3.20
.60
5.50
25
.45
4.00
.75
6.85
26
.45
4.10
.78
7.15
34
.61
5.40
1.07
9.35
40
.72
6.40
1.20
11.00
50
89
7.50
1 50
13.25
Inquiry 193
DECEMBER 1985 • BYTE 473
order toll free 800-538-5000 800-662-6279 (ca>
BARGAIN HUNTERS CORNER
IBM COMPATIBLE
MONOCHROME DISPLAY ADAPTOR
• 720 «350 PIXEL SCREEN (10 CHARACTERS . 2S LINE S
• CHARACTER ATTRIBUTES
BLINK. UNDERLINE, ftEVWSF VIDEO 8, INTfMMFIED
■ STANDARD TTL OUTWT
• MADE IN USA BY INTEKSIl SYSTEMS
• 90 DAY WARRANTY
■ INCLUDES 5 PAGE MANUAL
$4995
NOTE THE ABOVE Onto i
EXCESS INVENTORY LUI.
<i *OU,ASWt
■■••. ?eu The
■1 PARALLEL PRINTER PORT
HCHASLQ THESE FROM AN
■a r AN uUHfARDOE-PRICc'
PURCHAM TMK ABOVE
MONOCHROME DISPLAY ADAPTOR
AND THE
SAMW00 MONOCHROME MONITOR
FOR ONLY
$13995
SPECIALS END 12/31/85,
PAGE WIRE WRAP WIRE
PRECUT ASSORTMENT
IN ASSORTED COLORS S27.50
lOOea 5.S". 6.0". 6.5". 7.0"
2S0ea 2.5". 4. 5". 5.0"
500ea 3 0". 3 5", 4.0"
SPOOLS
100 feet $4.30
500 feet S13 25
250 feet S7 25
1000 feet S21 95
Please specify color:
Blue. Black. Yellow or Red
EMI FILTER
$4.95
• MANUFACTURED
BY CORCOM
• LOW COST »;i
■ FITS LC HP BELOW I
■ 6 AMP 120 240 VOLT
6 FOOT LINE CORDS
LC-2 2 CONDUCTOR .39
LC-3 2 CONDUCTOR .99
LC HP 3 CONDUCTOR W STD
FEMALE SOCKET 1.49
MUFFIN FANS
SQ ROTROIM 14. 95
SQ ETRI 1495
SO MASUSHITA 16 95
WIRE WRAP PROTOTYPE CARDS
FR-4 EPOXY GLASS LAMINATE
WITH GOLD-PLATED EDGE CARD FINGERS
' BMPR2 IBM
BOTH CARDS HAVE SILK SCREENED LEGENDS
AND INCLUDES MOUNTING BRACKET
IBM PR 1 WITH -5V AND GROUND PLANE .... $27 95
IBM PR2 AS ABOVE WITH DECODING LAYOUT S29.95
S-100
PI 00-1 BARE NO FOIL PADS S15.15
PI 00-2 HORIZONTAL BUS $21.80
P100 3 VERTICAL BUS »21 .80
P100-4 SINGLE FOIL PADS PER HOLE S22.75
APPLE
P500-1 BARE NO FOIL PADS S15.15
P500 3 HORIZONTAL BUS S22.75
P50O4 SINGLE FOIL PADS PER HOLE $21.80
, 7060-45 FOR APPLE Me AUX SLOT $3000 .
SOCKET-WRAP I.D.™
• SLIPS OVER WIRE WRAP PINS
• IDENTIFIES PIN NUMBERS ON WRAP
SIDE OF BOARD
• CAN WRITE ON PLASTIC; SUCH AS IC --'
PCK OF
10
PINS PARTa
8 IDWRAP 08
14 IDWRAP 14 10 1.
16 IDWRAP 16 10 1
18 IDWRAP 18 5 1.
20 IDWRAP 20 5 1.
22 IDWRAP 22 5 1.
24 IDWRAP 24 5 1.
28 IDWRAP 28 5 1,
40 IDWRAP 40 5 1.
PLEASE ORDER BY NUMBER OF
PACKAGES (PCK OF)
CAPACITORS
TANTALUM
15V 35 .47//I 35V
15V 70 1.0 35V
15V .80 2.2 35V
15V 1 35 47 35V 85
35V 40 10 35V 100
,? ' * =1
ID WRAP 24
FRAME STYLE
TRANSFORMERS
SWITCHING POWER SUPPLIES
12 6V AC CT
12 6V AC CT
12 6V AC CT
1 25 2V AC CT
2 AMP
4 AMP
8 AMP
2 AMP
25PIH0 SUB
GENDER &Z-
CHANGERS 'V
$7.95
DATARASE EPROM ERASER $34.95
45
I ERASES TWO EPROMS IN 10 MINUTES
• COMPACT NO DRAWER
I THIN METAL SHUTTER
PREVENTS UV LIGHT
FROM ESCAPING
"
50V
50V 05
50V 05
50V 05
50V .05
50V .05
50V 05
50V 05
50V 05
DISC
680
001,
0022
005
.01
02
"« WATT RESISTORS
5% CARBON FILM ALL STANDARD VALUES
FROM 1 OHM TO 10 MEG OHM
10 PCS -*!»■ >--.»•- .05 100 PCS -mi. ■-■■*■■ .02
. 50 PCS ■..>„■■«**■ .025 1000 PCS samevalue 01S ,
MONOLITHIC
01/.I
50V
14
•lpf
50V
.18
047//I
50V
.15
47j/f
50V
.25
ELECTROLYTIC
RADIAL
AXIAL
V
25V
.14
W
50V
.14 1
2.2
35V
15
10
50V
16 1
4.7
bOV
15
22
16V
14 1
10
50V
15
47
50V
20 1
47
15V
18
100
35V
25 1
100
16V
18
720
25V
30 1
220
J5V
20
470
50V
50 1
470
25V
30
1000
16V
60 1
2200
16V
70
2200
16V
70 1
4700
25V
1 45
4700
16V
1 25 I
COMPUTER GRADE
44.000ul
30V
3 95 1
RESISTOR NETWORKS
SIP
10 PIN
9 RESISTOR
69
SIP
8 PIN
7 RESISTOR
.59
DIP
16 PIN
8 RESISTOR
1 09
DIP
16 PIN
15 RESISTOR
1.09
DIP
14 PIN
7 RESISTOR
.99
DIP
14 PIN
13 RESISTOR
.99
SPECIALS ON DYPASS CAPACITORS
.01 /vf CERAMIC DISC
.01 fji MONOLITHIC
1 fA CERAMIC DISC
.1 //f MONOLITHIC
100/S5.00
100/S10.00
100/S6.50
100/S12.50,
PS-IBM $99.95
• FOR IBM PC-XT COMPATIBLE
• 130 WATTS
• -5V I 15A. -12V (i 4.2A
5V i 5A. 12V(».5A
• ONE YEAR WARRANTY
PS-130 S99.95
■ 130 WATTS
• SWITCH ON REAR
• FOR USE IN OTHER IBM
TYPE MACHINES
■ 90 DAY WARRANTY
PSA $49.95
• USE TO POWER APPLE TYPE
SYSTEMS
• -SV .a 4A. -12V :i 2.5A
-5V(S .SA, 12V (d ,5A
• APPLE POWER CONNECTOR
PS-3 $39.95
• AS USED IN APPLE III
• -SV (a- 4A. -12V (a 2.5A
-5V @ -25A. -12V ' i 30A.
• 1S.5" » 4.5" x 2.0". .884 LBS.
PS-ASTEC $19.95
• CAN POWER TWO 5' fc" FDDS
• '5V'5 2 5A. -12V i 2A
12V $ 1A
• »5VIS 5AIF 12V IS NOT USED
• 6.3" X 4.0" K 1.9". 1 LB
PS-TDK $29.95
. '5V@4A, -12V i i 2A
• *12V @ 2.8A, -12V lui .30A
> 6.2" x 7.4" x 1.7". 1.6 LBS.
NEW BOOKS BY
STEVE CIARCIA
BIULD YOUR OWN
Z80 COMPUTER $19 95
CIRCUIT CELLAR VOL 1 $17.95
CIRCUIT CELLAR VOL 2 $18.95
! CIRCUIT CELLAR VOL 3 $18.95
k CIRCUIT CELLAR VOL 4 $18.95 J
,v
WISH SOLDERLESS BREADBOI
RDS
PART
NUMBER
DIMENSIONS
DISTRIBUTION
STBIPISI
TIE
POINTS
TERMINAL
STRIP1S)
TIE
POINTS
BINDING
POSTS
PRICE
WBU D
.38 I 6.50"
1
100
—
...
—
2.95
WBUT | 1 38x6 50"
—
1
630
6.95
WBU 204 3
3.94 x 8.45"
1
10O
2
1260
2
17.95
WBU 204
5.13x8 45"
4
400
2
12S0
3
24.95
WBU 206
6.88 x 9.06"
5
500
3
1890
4
29.95
WBU 208 I 8.25 x 9.45"
7
700
4
2520
4
39.95 J
LITHIUM BATTERY
AS USED IN CLOCK CIRCUITS
3 VOLT BATTERY S3. 95
, BATTERY HOLDER SI 49
MICROCOMPUTER
HARDWARE HANDBOOK
FROMELCOMP $14.95
OVER 800 PAGES OF DATA SHEETS
ON THE MOST COMMONLY USED
ICs. INCLUDES TTL. CMOS. 74LS00.
MEMORY. CPUs. MPU SUPPORT
.AND MUCH MORE'
IC MASTER $79.95
THE INDUSTRY STANDARD
VISIT OUR RETAIL STORE LOCATED AT 1256 SOUTH BASCOM AVENUE IN SAN JOSE
atSJDR Microdevices
■ ■ 1224 S. Bascom Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128
800-538-5000 • 800-662-6279 (CA) • (408) 995-5430
FAX (408) 275-8415 • Telex 171-110
HOURS: M-W-F, 9-5 TU-TH, 9-9 SAT, 10-3
PLEASE USE YOUR CUSTOMER NUMBER WHEN ORDERING
TERMS: Minimum order $10.00 For shipping and handling include $2.50 lor UPS
Ground and $3 50 for UPS Air Orders over 1 lb. and foreign orders may require
additional shipping charges - please contact our sales department lor the amount CA
residents must Include applicable sales tax. All mere
unless otherwise slated Prices are subject to change without noli
responsible lor typographical errors. We reserve the right to limit quantities and to
substitute manufacturer. All merchandise subject to prior sale.
ALL MERCHANDISE 100% GUARANTEED
! COPYRIGHT 1985 JDR MICRODEVICES
474 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry I94
PARTIAL LISTING ONLY — CALL FOR A FREE CATALOG
PRINTER BUFFERS
3-WAY SWITCH BOXES
FLOPPY DISK DRIVES
• FREES COMPUTER FOR OTHER TASKS WHILE
PRINTING LONG DOCUMENTS.
. STANDALONE DESIGN - WORKS WITH ANY
COMPUTER OR PRINTER.
• ALL MODELS FEATURE PRINT PAUSE,
MEMORY CHECK AND
GRAPHICS CAPABILITY.
$139.95
SP120P PARALLEL
• 64K UPGRADABLE TO 256K
• LED INDICATOR SHOWS VOLUME OF DATA IN
BUFFER
SP120S RS232 SERIAL $159.95
• 64K UPGRADABLE TO 256K
• SIX SELECTABLE BAUD RATES FROM
600B 19.200B
SP110 PARALLEL $249.95
• 64K UPGRADABLE TO 512K
• SPOOLS OUTPUT OF UP TO
THREE COMPUTERS
• LED BARGRAPH DISPLAYS AMOUNT
OF DATA IN BUFFER
• RESET FUNCTION CLEARS DATA IN BUFFER
• REPEAT FUNCTION CAN PRODUCE MULTIPLE
COPIES OF A DOCUMENT
• SERIAL OR PARALLEL
» CONNECTS 3 PRINTERS TO 1
COMPUTER OR 3 COMPUTERS
TO 1 PRINTER
• ALL LINES SWITCHED
• HIGH QUALITY ROTARY SWITCH
MOUNTED ON PCB
• GOLD CONTACTS
• STURDY METAL ENCLOSURE
TEAC
FD-55B '■! HEIGHT DS/DD
FD-55F Vj HEIGHT DS QUAD
«.«,«,„ SHUGART
SA460 5V." (80 TRACKI DS/QUAD
-r...^ i TAIMDOIM
TlYll 00-2 SW IFOR IBM] DS/DD
MPI-B525V(FORIBM)DS DD
SWITCH-3P CENTRONICS PARALLEL
SWITCH-3S RS232 SERIAL
99.95
99.95 ,
IBM
PRINTER
GABLE
• DB25 TO
CENTRONICS
• SHIELDED
CABLE
$9.95
JOYSTICKS
51 $7.95
$4.95 I
$89.95
$99.95
$199.95
$99.95
$89.95
SIEMENS 8" DISK DRIVES
FD100-8SS DDSA801REQUIV $119.00
FD200-8 DS/DD SA851R EQUIV. $1 59.00
JFORMAT-2 SOFTWARE $49.95
TEAC FD-55B
9 *~V"^'*^
TANDONTM100 2
NASHUA DISKETTE SPECIALS
5V4" SOFT SECTOR
DS/DD WITH HUB RINGS
$9.90
BON OF 10
89Cea
BULK OTY SO
790ea
BULK OTY 250
NASHUA DISKETTES WERE JUDGED TO HAVE THE HIGHEST
POLISH AND RECORDED AMPLITUDE OF ANY DISKETTES
TESTED SEE -COMPARING FLOPPY DISKS". BYTE 9-84
DISKETTE FILE
$8.95
HOLDS 70 5V." DISKETTES
SUPPORT FOR QUAD DENSITY DRIVES FROM TALL TREE SYSTEMS
DISK DRIVE CABINETS
BV4" DRIVE ENCLOSURES
CAB-APPLE APPLE TYPE DRIVE CABINET $24.95
WITHOUT POWER SUPPLY
CAB-1FH5 FULL HEIGHTS'/." BEIGE DRIVE CABINET S69.95
WITH POWER SUPPLY
CAB-2SV5 DUAL SLIMLINE 5V," CABINET S49.95
WITH POWER SUPPLY - VERTICAL MOUNT
8 INCH DRIVE ENCLOSURES BY JRR
CAB-2SV8 DUAL SUMLINE 8" DRIVE CABINET $209.95
WITH POWER SUPPLY ■ VERTICAL MOUNT
CAB-2FH8 DUAL FULL HEIGHT 8" DRIVE CABINET $219.95
WITH POWER SUPPLY HORIZONTAL
CAB-1FH5
CAB-2SV5
DISKETTES
N-MD2D
N-MD2F
N-MD2H
N-FD1
N-FD2D
N-3.5SS
VMD1D
V-MD2D
V -MD110D
NASHUA 5V4"
DS DD SOFT SECTOR
DS/QUAD SOFT SECTOR
DS HIGH DENSITY FOR AT
NASHUA 8"
SS/DD SOFT SECTOR
DS DD SOFT SECTOR
NASHUA 3.5"
3 5" SSDD FOR MACINTOSH $32.95
VERBATIM 5 1 /4"
SS/DD SOFT SECTOR
DS DD SOFT SECTOR
SS DD 10 SECTOR HARD
$9.90
$34.95
$49.95
$27.95
$34.95
IBM STYLE COMPUTER CASE
| ATTRACTIVE STEEL CASE, WITH HINGED LID, FITS
POPULAR PC XT COMPATIBLE MOTHER-BOARDS.
• SWITCH CUT-OUT ON SIDE FOR PC/XT STYLE
POWER SUPPLY
• CUT-OUT FOR 8 EXPANSION SLOTS
• ALL HARDWARE INCLUDED
IBM COMPATIBLE KEYBOARDS
«
ONLY
$59.95
VP
j DKM-2000 $79.95 r-
• FULLY IBM COMPATIBLE
' 83 KEY WITH CAPACI-
TANCE TYPE SWITCHES
• LED STATUS INDICATORS
FOR CAPS. NUMBER LOCK
I AUDIBLE CLICK
KB 5151 $99.95
Jl^r /lT.ijlfor lfo^jj
• ENHANCED IBM
COMPATIBLE
■ SEPARATE CURSOR AND
NUMERIC KEYPADS
■ CAPS LOCK 8. NUMBER
LOCK INDICATORS
■ IMPROVED KEYBOARD LAYOUT
EKTENDER CARDS
POWER STRIPS
• UL APPROVED
• 15A CIRCUIT BREAKER
CASE WITH KEYBOARD
KEYBOARD-AP
$12.95
IBM PC
IBM AT
APPLE II
APPLE lie
MULTIBUS
S45.00
S68.00
$45.00
$45.00
$86.00
»%%%%•*
I REPLACEMENT FOR
APPLE II KEYBOARD
. CAPS LOCK KEY
. AUTOREPEAT
I ONE KEY ENTRY OF
BASIC OR
CP M COMMANDS
$49.95
JB
FOR APPLE MOTHER-BOARD
. USER DEFINED
FUNCTION KEYS
• NUMERIC KEYPAD WITH
CURSOR CONTROL
• CAPS LOCK
• AUTO REPEAT
MODEL KB 1000
.ONLY $79.95
20 MHz DUAL TRACE
OSCILLOSCOPE
HIGH QUALITY TEST EQUIPMENT FROM JDR INSTRUMENTS
35 MHz DUAL TRACE
OSCILLOSCOPE
MODEL
2000
$389
• BAND WIDTH DC: TO20 MHi |-3dbl
AC: 10 Hz TO 20MHZ |-3dt»
• SWEEP TIME - .2 (/SEC TO .5 SEC/DIV
ON 20 RANGES
. COMPLETE MANUAL AND HIGH QUALITY
HOOK-ON PROBES INCLUDED
• INPUT IMPEDANCE: 1 MEG OHM
. TV VIDEO SYNC FILTER
• XV AND Z AXIS OPERATION
• 110/220 VOLT OPERATION
• COMPONENT TESTER
. LP CONSUMPTION - 19 WATTS
• BUILT-IN CALIBRATOR
■ AUTOMATIC OR TRIGGERED TIMEBASE
MODEL
3500
$549
. BAND WIDTH - DC: TO 35MHz (-3db)
AC: 10 Hz TO 35MHZ (3.11,)
• SWEEP TIME - .1 j/SEC TO .5 SEC/DIV
ON 21 RANGES
• DELAYED TRIGGER 100 mSEC TO 1 /(SEC WITH
INTENSIFIED AND DELAYED MODES
• COMPLETE MANUAL AND 1X-10X COMPENSATED
HOOK-ON PROBES INCLUDED
• VARIABLE HOLD OFF FOR
VIEWING COMPLEX WAVES
• TV VIDEO SYNC FILTER
• TRIGGERING OF CHA. CH-B. ALTERNATING.
LINE OR EXTERNAL
• XY AND Z AXIS OPERATION
CALL FOR VOLUME QUOTES
DIGITAL MULTIMETER PEN
MODEL DPM 1000
$49
95
AUTO RANGING, POLARITY AND DECIMAL!
LARGE 3 5" DISPLAY
DATA HOLD SWITCH FREEZES READING
FAST. AUDIBLE CONTINUITY TEST
LOW BATTERY INDICATOR
OVERLOAD PROTECTION
. ONLY IV, x SV. « "A"
> DC VOLTS 1mV-500V
AC VOLTS 1tnV-5O0V
i 1 OHM 2 MEG OHM
WEIGHS ONLY 2.3 OUNCES
. LOW PARTS COUNT-CUSTOM 80 PIN LSI INSURES
RELIABILITY
i INCLUDES MANUAL. BATTERIES. HARD CASE. AND '
ALLIGATOR CUP
©COPYRIGHT 1985 JDR MICRODEVICES
Inquiry 194
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 475
#JDR Microdevices
1224 South Bascom Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128
800-538-5000 • 800-662-6279 (CA) • (408) 995-5430 • FAX (408) 275-8415 • Telex 171-110
IBM COMPATIBLE INTERFACE CARDS
ALL WITH A ONE YEAR WARRANTY
MULTIFUNCTION CARD
$129.95
ALL THE FEATURES OF AST S 6 PACK PLUS AT HALF THE PRICE
• CLOCK CALENOAR
• 0-384K RAM
• SERIAL PORT
. PARALLEL PORT
• GAME PORT
• SOFTWARE INCLUDED
PRINTER CABLE $9.95 64K RAM UPGRADE 9 $7 11
COLOR GRAPHICS ADAPTOR $99.95
FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH IBM COLOR CARD
• 4 VIDEO INTERFACES: RGB.
COMPOSITE COLOR. HI-RES
COMPOSITE MONOCHROME.
CONNECTOR FOR RF MODULATOR
> COLOR GRAPHICS MODE: 320 x 200
' MONO GRAPHICS MODE: 640 Jt 200
■ LIGHT PEN INTERFACE
MONOCHROME GRAPHICS CARD $129.95
FULLY COMPA TIBLE WITH IBM MONOCHROME ADAPTOR AND
HERCULES GRAPHICS CARD
• LOTUS COMPATIBLE
• TEXT MODE: 80 x 25
• GRAPHICS MODE: 720 x 348
• PARALLEL PRINTER INTERFACE
• OPTIONAL SERIAL PORT
-gva&txsm
FLOPPY DISK DRIVE ADAPTOR
$59.95
* INTERFACES UPTO FOUR STANDARD
FDDs TO IBM PC OR COMPATIBLES
• INCLUDES CABLE FOR TWO
INTERNAL DRIVES
1200 BAUD INTERNAL MODEM FOR IBM
INCLUDES PC TALK III COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE
• HAYES COMPATIBLE
• AUTO DIAL AUTO ANSWER
• AUTO RE-OIAL ON BUSY
> INCLUDES SERIAL PORT?
• ONE YEAR WARRANTY
EASYDATA-12B $195
300 BAUD MODEM FOR APPLE OR IBM
CLOSE-OUT
mJ SPECIAL
NOW ONLY
$49.95
INCLUDES ASCII PRO EZ SOFTWARE (A S10O VALUE IN ITSELF)
' FCC APPROVED
• BELL SYSTEMS 103 COMPATIBLE
. INCLUDES AC ADAPTOR
CABLE FOR APPLE He
AUTO DIAL AUTO ANSWER
DIRECT CONNECT
S14.95
100 CPS ESPRIT PRINTER
3&*;
9x9 DOT MATRIX
100 CPS - BIDIRECTIONAL
FRICTION AND TRACTOR FEED
PROPORTIONAL SPACING
CABLE TO IBM PC
$149.95
80 COLUMN
PARALLEL AND SERIAL INTERFACES
8 CHARACTER SETS AND GRAPHICS
$995
REPLACEMENT RIBBON CARTRIDGE SZ 44 $11.95
UNBELIEVABLE MONITOR DEALS
TAXAN
RGB VISION III
MODEL 4)5
18 MHi BAND WIOTH
640 x 262 PIXEL RESOLUTION
16 COLORS WITH INTENSITY
CONTROL
12" BLACK MATRIX
IBM ANO LOTUS COMPATIBLE
SAKATA
COMPOSITE COLOR
MODEL SC-100
TOP RATEO FOR APPLE
13" COMPOSITE VIDEO
RESOLUTION: 280H - 300V
INTERNAL AUDIO AMPLIFIER
ONE YEAR WAHRANTY
SAMWOO
MONOCHROME
MODEL DM-216B
PERFECT COSMETIC MATCH
FOR IBM PC
IBM COMPATIBLE TTL INPUT
i 12" NON-GLARE SCREEN
• P39 GREEN PHOSPHOR
HI-HES 22 MHz BAND WIDTH
CABLE FOR IBM
$15.95
$209.95 $169.95 $99.95
MONITOR STAND
TILTS AND SWIVELS
$12.95
APPLE COMPATIBLE
INTERFACE CARDS
I EPROM PROGRAMMER $79.95
MODEL
RP525
• DUPLICATE OR BURN ANY
STANDARD 27xx SERIES EPROM
• EASY TO USE MENU-DRIVEN
SOFTWARE INCLUDED
• MENU SELECTION FOR 2716, 2732,
2732A, 2764 8.27128
• HIGH SPEED WRITE ALGORITHM
• LED INDICATORS FOR ACTIVITY
i NO EXTERNAL POWER SUPPLY
REQUIRED
• ONE YEAR WARRANTY
08SM
1BK RAMCARD
$39.95
- FULL TWO YEAR WARRANTY
I EXPAND YOUR 48K APPLE TO 64K
. USE IN PLACE OF APPLE
LANGUAGE CARD
I B»M PC tUD */ INSTRUCTIONS $8 95
i\M
I IC TEST CARD
$99.95
• QUICKLY TESTS MANY COMMON
ICs
■ DISPLAYS PASS OR FAIL
• ONE YEAR WARRANTY
• TESTS: 4000 SERIES CMOS
74HC SERIES CMOS
7400; 74LS. 74L. 74H. 74S.
SOME PROMS AND RAMS
DISK DRIVES
FOR APPLE COMPUTERS
■ V'z HEIGHT-ALPS MECHANISM
' 100% APPLE COMPATIBLE
. FULL 1 YEAR WARRANTY
BAL-525
$99.95
BAL-590
$129.95
• TEAC MECHANISM DIRECT DRIVE
• 100% APPLE COMPATIBLE
• FULL 1 YEAR WARRANTY
AP-135
$129.95
> FULL HT SHUGART MECHANISM
I DIRECT REPLACEMENT FOR APPLE
DISK II
■ SIX MONTH WARRANTY
FOR
APPLE IIC
AD-3G
$139.95
. 100% APPLE lie COMPATIBLE.
READY TO PLUG IN W/ SHIELDED
CABLE 8, MOLDED 19 PIN CONNECTOR
i FAST. RELIABLE SLIMLINE
DIRECT DRIVE
■ SIX MONTH WARRANTY
FOR
MACINTOSH
MAC 535
$299.95
• 3.5" ADD-ON DISK DRIVE
• 100% MACINTOSH COMPATIBLE
• SINGLE SIDED 40OK BYTE STORAGE
• HIGH RELIABILITY DRIVE FEATURES
AUTO-EJECT MECHANISM
- FULL ONE YEAR WARRANTY
DISK DRIVE ACCESSORIES
DISK CONTROLLER CARD $49.95
APPLE lie ADAPTOR CABLE $19.95
ADAPTS STANDARD APPLE DRIVES
FOR USE WITH APPLE lie
TEAC
OISK
DRIVES
FOR
IBM
PCS
FD-55B
FD55F
OS/DO
DS/OUIO
589.95
£99.95 .
COMREXCR 1000 DUAL SLIMLINE DISK DRIVE <M QQ QC
FOR APPLE COMPU TERS 9 ■ WW.OU
■ SPACE SAVING DESIGN. STACK BETWEEN
COMPUTER AND MONITOR
I QUIET. RELIABLE Vi HEIGHT DRIVES
i TOTAL STORAGE CAPACITY: 286K BYTES
■ AUTO-EJECT MECHANISM
i SHIELDED CABLE INCLUDED
INCLUDES CONTROLLER AND DOS 3.3 WITH DISK UTILITIES
ALL MERCHANDISE 100% GUARANTEED
©COPYRIGHT 198S JDR MICRODEVICES
476 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
Inquiry 195
UNCLASSIFIED ADS
NEEDED: Nonprofit counseling, crisis-intervention
and information and referral service needs tax-
deductible donation of Apple II and printer. Will pay
shipping. Hotline for Help, 1 7 Elliot St., Brattleboro.
VT 05301.
NEEDED: Nonprofit school for emotionally disturbed
children seeks tax-deductible donation of Apple
computers, peripherals, literature, supplies, etc. Will
provide receipts. Dean Esmay. SMA Independence
High School. 22700 Richton Square Rd . Richton
Park. IL 60471, (312) 481-6091.
NEEDED: Nonprofit corporation providing free trans-
portation within the state of Washington to elderly,
disadvantaged, or low-income people seeks dona-
tion of used radio equipment and two computers.
Minuteman Messengers, 636 Burwell. Bremerton,
WA 98310, (206) 377-9996.
WANTED: Explorers' Post 367. a unit of Boy Scouts
of America, seeks tax-deductible donation of com-
puter and peripherals. Will provide receipt. Ex-
plorers' Post 367, 539 South Main St., Room 2205.
Findlay. OH 45840. (419) 422-2121. ext. 4195.
WANTED: Library of the Marine Environmental
Sciences Consortium seeks tax-deductible donation
of IBM PC or compatible with 2 56K or 5I2K bytes
of RAM and 360K disk drive(s). 10- to 20-megabyte
hard disk, monitor, and dot-matrix printer, MESC,
POB 369. Dauphin Island. AL 36528.
WANTED: Nonprofit mathematics research associa-
tion needs new or used 20- to 40-megabyte com-
puter and printer to foster growth regarding con-
servative and abstract concepts, logic, and the
history and future of mathematical sciences. Richard
Teter, Paranumerics Foundation. POB 5813, Sher-
man Oaks. CA 91403,
WANTED: Nonprofit organization needs low-cost
serial I/O interface option for Compugraphic G 7500
typesetter. Offers or any hints are welcome. Mis-
sionsverlag. D-4812 Bielefeld 11, Mainweg 12. West
Germany.
NEEDED: Mission organization needs donation of up
to five Digital Rainbow 100s. dual disk drive, and
LA100 printers for Bible translation and study in
Africa. Will pay shipping. Africa Evangelical Fellow-
ship Inc.. POB 1679. Bloomfield. N| 07003. 1201)
748-9281.
WANTED: Missionary needs donation of PC and
public-domain word-processing software for aid to
translation of evangelical literature. Ingo Haake. POB
1688. 90000 Porto Alegre. RS, Brazil.
NEEDED: Information on NAPLPS or sources to ac-
quire information on this subject, lohann G.
Kiermeyer. Hauptstrasse 27, 842 5 Neustadt/Donau.
West Germany.
WANTED: lune 1977 BYTE or copy of Dan Fylstra's
article Interfacing the IBM Selectric Keyboard
Printer.' pages 46-52 and 133-139, Any other in-
formation appreciated for this task. Roger G. Smith.
Rt 2, Box 366, Laurel. MS 39440. (601) 428-7484.
FOR TRADE: Macintosh public-domain programs.
Will share with users groups only. Send newsletter
and list of your public-domain files and digitized
images. Also, inquire about International Mac User
Group Network lohn Allen. POB 4004 5, Portland.
OR 97024-0045.
WANTED: Persons interested in robotics to form in-
ternational club with newsletter, etc. Send SASE. The
Time machine. 30 Melken Court. Baltimore. MD
21236.
WANTED: People interested in starting nationwide
MC-10/6803/6801 users group and public-domain
software exchange. Send SASE. Ion Porter, 6501
Amber Crest, Indianapolis, IN 46220
FOR SALE: CompuPro System B. TeleVideo 950 ter-
minal, extra S-100 bus boards. HP 5 plotter, NEC
7710 letter-quality printer, and more. S6000 for
whole system or will separate. M. D. Schier, 3195 Lin-
wood Ave.. Cincinnati. OH 45208, (513) 321-3199,
FOR SALE: Rockwell AIM 65 with 4K: S250.
ExpandoRAM with 16K: $100. Kimsi S-100 expan-
sion board for AIM: S60. SSM VBIB video board:
$80 Each has documentation, lohn Ip, 9465
McNaught Rd,, Chilliwack. British Columbia V2P
6E9. Canada.
FOR SALE: Apple lie 80-column card with manual.
Excellent condition. $70 or best offer. Michael
Smith. D-8 Gatewood. Greenwood, SC 29646.
FOR SALE: LDP Lightning One S-100 PC. 10-MHz
8086. '/j-megabyte RAM. 5-megabyte Winchester,
handles three 40-megabyte drives. Will also con-
figure as 8-inch system $1900. R. Morein. 1570
Arran Way. Dresher. PA 1902 5, (2151 646-4894.
WANTED: Apple II with damaged case or keyboard.
Need a working motherboard. Glen Button, POB
536. Cheshire. CT 06410. (203) 272-9251.
FOR SALE: 12-inch Sanyo CRT-36 green monochrome
monitor with cable. $100 or best offer Two TEAC
55B DS/DD disk drives. $75 each or best offer. Ex-
cellent condition, Michael I Vargo. 2999 Lutheran
Rd,, Gilbertsville, PA 1952 5.
FOR SALE: ADDS Regent 200 terminal with
detachable keyboard. Best offer over $600 Tony
Preston. 119 Hickory Lane, Medford, N| 08055,
FOR SALE: Assembled and tested Slicer single-board
computer, 8-MHz 80186. I28K RAM. almost new.
$700. Charles Ng. 49 Showers Dr. #474. Mountain
View. CA 94040, (415) 948-5174.
WANTED: 15-inch white-on-black Hitachi high-
resolution monitor or equivalent. Harry |. Weber
M.D.. Route 8. Box 554. Hot Springs, AR 71913, (501)
767-6266
FOR SALE: Olivetti LUC 401, line-control unit. TTY
interface, communications interface, RS-232 serial
interface, and RS-232 cable. Excellent condition.
$600 (Canadian) or best offer K. Molohon. POB
562. Sudbury, Ontario P3E 4P8, Canada.
FOR SALE: TRS-80 Model 16A with 128K, 68000
board, two 8-inch floppy drives (1.25 megabytes
each). $3000. Ralph Stegner. 66 South Broad St..
Fairborn. OH 45324, (513) 878-3447,
FOR SALE: Passport Music System with keyboard.
Also. Mountain Hardware's Music System with light
pen. Brand new. Will sell for dealer cost. Robert M.
Reinhart. 4816 North Rutherford. Chicago, IL 60656.
(312) 286-6606.
FOR SALE: Applied Concepts Morphy Encore chess
computer, USCF rating 1800+. $150. Steve Ferrero.
8601 First Ave. North Bergen, Nl 07047. (201)
869-53 51
FOR SALE: CompuPro 8085/88 system with 64 K. two
8-inch 600K drives, three serial ports, TeleVideo
910+ CRT. Okidata 82A printer, Mullens I/O. and
more: $3200, Excellent working order. Gary Rags-
dale. 8631 Wine Leaf Cove. Germantown. TN 38138.
(901) 754-9522.
FOR SALE: Apple III with 128K, one external disk,
and green-on-green monitor. Mike Ashton, 317
St. Pauls Ave, lersey City, N| 07306, (201) 420-
0515.
AVAILABLE: Public-domain Life, Core War, Line Auto-
mation, and Wa-Tor. All written and compiled with
Turbo Pascal 3.00 and constantly updated. Source
code included. Runs on 64K IBM PC with graphics
card. Send SASE Doug Church. 2112 Noyes St..
Evanston, IL 60201
FOR SALE: Xerox 820 board (compatible with Big
Board). Includes all sockets, resistors, capacitors,
schematics, and assembly instructions. Contains
monitor and character set on EPROMs. $55 or best
offer. Gary M. McComas, Route #1. Box 454. West
Hamlin. WV 25571, (304) 824-5664.
FOR SALE: Complete set of Heathkit H-l 1 computer
manuals, includes schematics and documentation.
Make offer Trade: Have extra lanuary and February
1979 issues of BYTE: need lanuary and February
1977, Will sell/buy if necessary. Luis Mulford, 205
Post Oak. Lake lackson. TX 77566,
UNCLASSIFIED ADS MUST be noncommercial, from
readers who have computer equipment to buy, sell, or trade
on a onetime basis. All requests for donated computer
equipment must be from nonprofit organizations. Programs
to be exchanged must be written by the individual or be
in the public domain. Ads must be typed double-spaced,
contain 50 words or less, and include full name and ad-
dress. This is a free service: ads are printed as space per-
mits. BYTE reserves the right to reject any unclassified
ad that does not meet these criteria. VJhen you submit
your ad (BYTE. Unclassified Ads. POB 372. Hancock.
NH 03449). allow at least four months for it to appear.
FOR SALE: BYTE: lanuary. February, March,
September through December, 1976: lanuary,
November. December. 1977: complete 1978
lanuary through October 1979. All for $60 postpaid,
leffrey Viola. 16 Temple Ave.. Hackensack, N| 07601.
FOR SALE: Inexpensive expansion interface, printer,
modem, and disk drive for TRS-80 Model I, Level
II. Paul Ngaopravej. 67-01 Woodside Ave.. Woodside.
NY 11377.
FOR SALE: MPX-16 bare board in original sealed
envelope, with BIOS and manuals. $210 including
shipping. Merton Bollman. 18002 Atkinson Ave..
Torrance. CA 90504.
FOR SALE: Zenith Z-90 loaded and Z-37 drives. Mor-
row MDI-E with MDT-70 terminal Excellent condi-
tion. Will consider any reasonable offer. Scott
Kudika. 2 37 Main St., New Kensington. PA 15068.
(412) 335-3472 or 337-1717.
FOR SALE: Atari 810 disk drive with interface card.
$200 or best offer. Don C lacobs, VF-103 MC. FPO
New York, NY 09501-6117.
FOR SALE: Three Industrial Micro-Systems Model
282 I6K static RAM boards. Phantom line. RAM
disable. PWR/MWR. and memory-management
capability using 4 50-ns 21 14s, with documentation.
$120 each G. Bober. POB 36428, Grosse Pointe
Woods, Ml 48236. (313) 884-2133
FOR SALE: Tektronix 4012 with controller and 10-inch
diagonal screen Hazeltine 1421 with keyboard and
12-inch alphanumeric screen Best offer. Sharon
Mott. Great Plains Gasification Associates, POB
1149, Beulah, ND 58523.
FOR SALE: 80-column card for the Apple lie: $50.
Ed Rambeau. 55 West 74th St.. New York. NY 10023.
(212) 724-0458.
TRADE: Will trade my Apple II public-domain soft-
ware for yours. Send SASE. Dale Flatow, 7684 South
Logan Ave.. Oak Creek. Wl 53154.
FOR SALE: DAK Microsystems 6/232. S-100 board
with six programmable RS-232 channels plus
16-channel master/slave interrupt controller
Preproduction with full documentation. Best offer
over $175. K. S Kolberg. 52105B Friars Court, South
Bend. IN 46637. (219) 277-6154
FOR SALE: Dual Remex ^-height 5-inch fully IBM PC-
compatible DS/DD drives in cabinet with power
supply. Almost new. Manual included. $220. Benny
Bamgbade. POB 440323, Houston. TX 77244-0323,
(713) 550-4651.
FOR SALE: Motorola UDS 208 A/B 4800-bps data
modem $1500 (Canadian). Doug Anderson/Ernie
Reimer. 118 Midland St., Winnipeg. Manitoba R3E
2Y6. Canada. (204) 775-8531
FOR SALE: Data General/One with 2 56K bytes,
screen, two 3!^-inch drives, printer, internal bat-
tery, and carrying bag. $3500. Michael Balamuth.
300 East Main St.. Centerport. NY 11721. (516)
367-8390.
FOR SALE: BYTE: 1978-1984 complete, except for
February and December 1979 and lune 1981. Also
November and December 1977. $30 per year.
Martin Evans. 32 5 East 52nd St, New York, NY
10022, (212) 355-1926,
FOR SALE: TI-99/4A. Excellent condition, hardly
used. Manuals and cables included $45 plus ship-
ping. Anthony Switzer. Rt. 2. Box 2 54. Campobello.
SC 29322, (803) 895-2659.
FOR SALE: Kaypro 4 84 Plus 88. CP/M machine (64K)
with factory-installed MS-DOS SWP coprocessor
(2 56K). built-in clock, and 300-bps modem. SI 200
or offer. Eric Hart, 103 McGraw Place, Ithaca. NY
14850. (607) 272-3691.
FOR SALE: HP 2I16B "mini'' computer. In working
order, but some assembly may be required. $200.
best offer, or trade. Billy Vitro. 10480 Orange Ave.,
Cupertino, CA 95014.
FOR SALE: Two Visual 50 terminals Emulate DEC
VT52, ADDS Viewpoint. LSI ADM 3A. and Hazeltine
Esprit terminals. Nearly new. $400 each or best of-
fer. Will swap both for one SwTPC 8212 terminal.
Dwight Lanpher, Box 472. Northeast Harbor, ME
04662. (207) 276-5350.
WANTED: Used IBM PC with dual disk drives,
memory expansion (at least 2 56K), monochrome
graphics card, and serial and parallel ports. State
price and other details. L. D. Thomas. 104 Birchwood
Rd.. Baltimore. MD 21228.
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 477
BOMB
BYTE's Ongoing Monitor Box
ARTICLE*
PAGI
1
9
2
37. 42
3
48
4
65
5
93
6
106
7
118
8
125
9
145
10
155
II
161
12
■;,y
13
187
li
195
is
203
16
PAGE ARTICLE AUTHORISl
Microbytes staff
What s New staff
Ask BYTE Ciarcia
Book Reviews Vose. Czarnik.
Clark
Ciarcia s Circuit Cellar:
Turnkey Bulletin-Board System Ciarcia
Programming Project: A SIMPL
Compiler Part I: The Basics Amsterdam
Product Description: The Tandy
600 and the Tandy 3000 Vose
English Recognition Kimbreli
Scientific Applications Software ... Nash
Programming Insight:
Virtual Fielding in Microsoft BASIC. Currie
Programming Insight:
Travesty with Database Rubenking
An Overview of
Conferencing Systems Meeks
Conferencing Standards Palme
Database Structure in PortaCOM . Palme
The Network Application Manager Flavin,
Williford
Storage Architectures Mayer
ARTICLE*
17
IS
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
il
>2
221
PAGE ARTICLE AUTHORISl
239 Common Ground Hancock
2 51 Local Power in a Remote Link . McManis
263 Conversations Comer.
Peterson
273 Cross-System Conferencing
with CLACR Levinson
294 The AT&T PC 6300 Troiano
306 The Tandy 200 and the
NEC PC-840IA Krause
317 Golden Common LISP DAmbrosio
323 The Norton Utilities Rabinovitz
329 HyperDrive for the Macintosh Williams
335 Upgrades for the TRS-80
Model 100 Kepner
343 The IBM Proprinter Malloy
351 Panasonic s 4-Color Graphic
Penwriter Edwards
363 Computing at Chaos Manor:
The European Connection Pournelle
385 BYTE U.K.: The Torch Triple X . . . . Pountain
397 BYTE lapan: Computing in Taiwan Raike
405 According to Webster:
Microcomputer Color Graphics-
Observations Webster
BOMB Results
A TECHNICAL EVOLUTION
Mark Garetz. author of Evolution of the Microprocessor, which
appeared in September s 10th Anniversary Section wins the S100 bonus.
Howard Austerlitz wins S50 for second place for his theme. A Parallel-
to-Serial Printer Port Adapter." The columns by Steve Ciarcia and lerry
Pounelle continue in their popularity with readers, as does Robert
Kurosaka's Mathematical Recreations.
BYTE ADVERTISING SALES STAFF:
Dennis ]. Riley. Advertising
Sales Manager, 70 Main Street.
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Seavex Ltd.
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Telex RS35539 SEAVEX
478 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
READER SERVICE
Inquiry No.
Page No.
388 1ST PLACE COMP SYSTEMS 208
2 A-D ELECTRONICS 180
3 A-OK SYSTEMS 448
4 A.ST RESEARCH 19
5 A.ST RESEARCH 19
6 AB COMPUTERS 68
7 ADDMASTER CORP 450
8 ADTEK 185
9 ADV DIGITAL CORP 36
10 ADV. DIGITAL CORP 36
11 ADVANCED COMP PROD 460. 461
411 ALPHA LOGIC BUSINESS SYS. . . 372
12 ALF PRODUCTS. INC 448
13 ALLEN-HARRIS INDUSTRIES . 159
14 ALPHANUMERIC INTL. INC 406
16 AMERICAN MICRO TECHNOLOGY 82
• AMERICAN MICROSYSTEMS 463
18 AMERICAN SMALL BUSN.COMP 259
19 AMPRO COMPUTERS INC 78
20 AMPRO COMPUTERS INC . . 78
• ANTHRO CORP 75
21 APPLIED INFORMATICS INC ... 448
22 APROTEK 285
23 APROTEK 285
24 APROTEK 471
25 ARISTO SOFTWARE 50
27 ASIDOR SYS. INC 446
• AT&T 312. 313
393 AT&T 410, 411
• AT&T INFORMATION SYS . 84, 85
• AT&T INTERNATIONAL 367
28 ATRON CORP. 278
29 ATRONICS INTL. INC 200
30 AVOCET 227
31 B&B ELECTRONICS 463
• B&C MICROSYSTEMS 369
32 BASIC TIME 327
33 BAY TECHNICAL ASSOC 23
• BEST WESTERN 333
34 BINARY TECHNOLOGY INC 467
35 BITTNER ELECTRONICS 348
36 BLAISE COMPUTING INC 300
37 BORLAND INT'L CII, 1
38 BORLAND INT L CII. 1
39 BORLAND INTL 39
40 BORLAND INTL 39
41 BORLAND INTL 41
42 BORLAND INTL 41
43 BP MICROSYSTEMS 348
• BUEHLER SERVICES INC 467
44 BUSINESS TOOLS INC 51
46 BYTE CONNECTION. THE 442
• BYTE MARKETING 391
• BYTE SUBSCRIBER MESSAGE . 369
• BYTE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE 178, 439
• C WARE/DESMET C 406
47 CI COMPUTERS 282
48 C.I COMPUTERS 282
• CALIF. DIGITAL 456. 457
50 CANON USA 53
51 CAPITAL EQUIPMENT CORP . . 30
• CAPITAL MICRO 286
52 CARTREX CORP 12. 13
53 CARTREX CORP. 12. 13
55 CENTROID CORP 446
56 CHALCEDONY SOFTWARE 24
57 CHALCEDONY SOFTWARE . 24
58 CHORUS DATA SYSTEMS 177
60 CLARITY SOFTWARE 154
61 CMS 358
62 COEFFICIENT SYS. CORP . 275
64 COGITATE 463
63 COGITATE 467
417 COMET TECH. INC 450
65 COMMUNICATIONS ELECTR 454
• COMPAQ COMPUTER CORP 152. 153
67 COMPETITIVE EDGE 408
• COMPUMAIL 470
369 COMPUPRO/VIASYN 225
70 COMPUSAVE 440
71 COMPUSERVE 157
72 COMPUTER AFFAIRS INC . 388
Inquiry No.
Page No.
337 COMPUTER ASSOCIATES 292
73 COMPUTER CONNECTION INC 453
• COMPUTER CONTINUUM 446
74 COMPUTER FRIENDS 326
75 COMPUTER HUT OF N.E 409
76 COMPUTER INNOVATIONS 371
77 COMPUTER MAIL ORDER 260, 261
398 COMPUTER MART 350
78 COMPUTER PARTS MART 467
79 COMPUTER PROD SUPPLY ... .446
80 COMPUTER WAREHOUSE . . 247
81 COMPUTER WAREHOUSE . 247
82 COMPUTERBANC 447
83 COMPUTRADE 272
84 CONCORD TECHNOLOGY CO 414
85 CONROY-LAPOINTE 70. 71
86 CONROY-LAPOINTE 70. 71
87 CONROY-LAPOINTE 70. 71
88 COSMOS 46. 47
418 COUGAR MOUNTAIN SOFTWARE446
89 CUESTA SYSTEMS 18
90 CURTIS. INC 468
91 CUSTOM COMP TECH 440
92 CUSTOM COMP TECH 441
93 CYGNET TECHNOLOGIES INC 54
94 CYMA CORPORATION 349
95 CYMA CORPORATION 349
96 CYMA CORPORATION 400
97 CYMA CORPORATION 400
98 D AND D DISCOUNT 443
99 DAC SOFTWARE INC 55
389 DAISY GRAPHICS . ' 194
390 DAISY GRAPHICS 194
102 DATA ACCESS CORP 267
103 DATA EXCHANGE 450
104 DATA EXCHANGE 463
105 DATA SPEC 382
106 DATA SPEC 382
107 DATA TRANSLATION INC 283
108 DATASOUTH COMP. CORP. . . .402
391 DHL 421
109 DIGI DATA CORP. 232
110 DIGITAL PRODUCTS INC 176
111 DIGITAL RESEARCH COMPUTERS266
112 DIGITAL RESEARCH INC 230
113 DIGITALK 224
114 DISK MERCHANT 412
115 DISKETTE CONNECTION 417
116 DISKS PLUS 418
420 DISKWORLDI, INC . . 458. 459
421 DISKWORLDI. INC 458, 459
118 DITRON CORP 444
119 DIVERSIFIED COMPUTER SYS . 444
121 DOKAY COMP PROD INC 455
123 DYNATEC SYSTEMS INC 412
394 DYNATECH COMP POWER 322
395 DYNATECH COMP POWER 322
125 EARTH COMPUTERS 338
126 EARTH COMPUTERS 338
• EASTMAN KODAK CO 151
128 ECOSOFT 220
129 EDUCATIONAL MICROCOMP SYS, 471
130 ELECTRONIC VAULTS, INC 74
131 ELEXOR INC 467
132 ELLIS COMPUTING INC 229
• EPSON AMERICA II
• EPSON AMERICA 218.219
135 EVEREX SYSTEMS 43
136 EVEREX SYSTEMS 43
413 EXCELTEC INDUSTRIES INC .468
137 EXPRESS MICRO SUPPLIES .... 374
138 EXPRESS SYSTEMS INC 304. 305
414 FIFTH GENERATION 123
Inquiry No.
Page No.
140 FIGURE FLOW LTD 463
141 FIRST CLASS PERIPHERALS .407
142 FLAGSTAFF ENGINEERING ... 353
143 FLAGSTAFF ENGINEERING 353
144 FORTRON, INC 449
145 FORTRON INC 449
146 FOX AND GELLER, INC 228
147 FOX SOFTWARE INC 147
407 FUNK SOFTWARE 376
150 GENERAL TECHNOLOGY , . .. 52
151 GENERIC SOFTWARE INC 450
408 GENICOM 370
152 GENOA SYSTEMS CORP. 281
153 GOLD HILL COMPUTERS 168
154 GOLDEN BOW SYSTEMS 468
155 GOLDEN BOW SYSTEMS. 471
156 GRAND UNION MICROSYSTEMS 448
157 GTE-TELENET 238
158 GTEK INC 413
159 H&E COMPUTRONICS 22
160 HARMONY VIDEO & COMP 394
161 HARRIS/LANIER.EOS DIV 373
162 HARRIS/LANIER EOS DIV 375
163 HARRIS/LANIER.EOS DIV. 377
164 HAYES EMPLOYMENT 357
399 HAYES MICROCOMPUTER PROD 231
165 HERCULES COMPUTER TECH .87
166 HERCULES COMPUTER TECH . . 316
• HEWLETT-PACKARD 253
168 HEWLETT-PACKARD 255
170 HI-TEC COMP & ELECTR 419
• HOLIDAY INNS. INC 368
172 IBEX COMP CORP 408
173 IBM (ISGl SERVICES 207
174 IBM IISGI SERVICES 398
175 IBS CORP. 72
176 IBS CORP. 72
177 I.C EXPRESS 450
178 INFOCOM 277
• INFORMATION APPLIANCE. . 181
180 INLAB INC 450
404 INNOVATIVE PERIPHERALS 377
181 INSPIRATION SYSTEMS 446
182 INTECTRA INC 448
183 INTEGRAND 356
184 INTELLIGENT COMP DESIGNS 149
185 INTELLIGENT COMP DESIGNS. . 149
• INTERFACE TECH CORP. 396
189 INTOUCH COMPUTING 18
402 ITT INFORMATION SYSTEMS . . 428
403 ITT INFORMATION SYSTEMS . 428
190 IADE COMP PROD . . 464. 465, 466
191 IAMECO ELECTRONICS , , , 236. 237
192 IDR INSTRUMENTS 325
193 IDR MICRODEVICES . 472. 473
194 IDR MICRODEVICES . 474. 475
195 IDR MICRODEVICES 476
412 IHL RESEARCH INC 444
196 IVC COMPANY OF AMERICA ... 79
197 KADAK PRODUCTS LTD 394
385 KEA SYSTEMS LTD 444
198 KIMTRON CORP. 186
200 KYOCERA 142. 143
201 KYOCERA 142, 143
202 LABORATORY MICROSYS 268
203 LANG ALLEN INC 74
204 LARK SOFTWARE 162
205 LATTICE, INC 140
206 LEO ELECTRONICS 448
207 LIFEBOAT ASSOC 373
208 LIFEBOAT ASSOC 375
209 LINTEK INC 272
210 LIONHEART PRESS 446
TO GET FURTHER information on the products advertised in BYTE, either
pick up your touch-tone telephone and use TIPS (if you are a subscriber),
or fill out the reader service card. Either way full instructions are pro-
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Inquiry No.
Page No.
211 LOGIC SOFT 416
212 LOGICAL DEVICES 30
214 LOGITECH INC 211
215 LOGITECH INC 213
216 LOMAS DATA PRODUCTS 197
• LOTUS DEVELOPMENT 205
217 LYBEN COMP SYS 444
219 LYCO COMPUTER 404
220 MAIN STREET COMPUTER , 116, 117
221 MANAGEMENT INFO SOURCE 424
222 MANX SOFTWARE SYS 64
299 MANZANA 58
223 MARK WILLIAMS CO, 59
224 MARK WILLIAMS CO 61
225 MARYMAC INDUSTRIES INC . .. 450
226 MASTERBYTE COMP OF NY 72
227 MAXELL DATA PRODUCTS 7
228 MAYNARD ELECTRONICS 15
148 MCGRAW-HILL, INC 365
230 MEGASOFT 468
231 MEGATEL COMPUTER TECH 418
232 MERRITT COMP PRODUCTS .463
233 MFI ENTERPRISES INC 321
424 MICRO BUSINESS PROD. 433
425 MICRO BUSINESS PROD 433
234 MICRO DATA BASE SYS 191
235 MICRO DESIGN INTL 92
236 MICRO MART. INC 62. 63
238 MICRO PRODUCTS 469
239 MICRO SYSTEMS DESIGN 468
240 MICROCOMPUTER ACCESSORIES 141
241 MICROCOMPUTER ACCESSORIES 141
242 MICROGRAFX 17
• MICROMINT INC 452
419 MICROPHONICS TECH. CORP. . . 206
243 MICROPHONICS TECH. CORP. . . 235
244 MICROPROCESSORS UNLTD 444
• MICRORIM INC 248, 249
245 MICROSHOP 451
422 MICROSIM 433
423 MICROSIM 433
• MICROSOFT CORP 137
• MICROSOFT CORP, 139
• MICROSOFT PRESS 362
246 MICROSTUF, INC 328
247 MICROWAY 250
248 MICROWAY 389
133 MIDWEST COMP & VIDEO SUPPLY333
249 MIMIC SYSTEMS 334
250 MINORITY INDUSTRIES 471
• MIX SOFTWARE 315
251 MODULA CORP. 303
252 MONTEREY INTL. CORP. ... 80
253 MOTEL COMPUTERS LTD 450
254 MULTI-TECH SYSTEMS 341
255 MULTI-TECH SYSTEMS 341
259 NATL PUBLIC DOMAIN SFTW 468
260 NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS 132
261 NATIONSERV 444
262 NCR . 45
263 NEC HOME ELECTR USA 183
264 NEC INFORMATION SYS CHI
265 NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES INTL .34. 35
266 NEW GENERATION SYS 390
• NEWSNET INC 16
268 NICOLET PARATRONICS 122
• NORTH HILLS CORP 414
269 OKIDATA 339
270 ORANGE MICRO 4
271 ORION INSTRUMENTS 381
275 OSBORNE/MCGRAW-HILL 393
276 P C HORIZONS INC 463
277 PACIFIC EXCHANGES 467
278 PANASONIC COMPUTER DIV 73
279 PC NETWORK 202
280 PCS LIMITED 76, 77
281 PCS LIMITED 271
68 PC SOURCE 384
282 PDQ CABLES 471
283 PERSOFT INC 8
284 PHOENIX COMP PROD CORP . . 279
416 POLAROID 121
DECEMBER 1985 -BYTE 479
READER SERVICE
Inquiry No.
Page No.
286 PLUS DEVELOPMENT CORP 56. 57
287 PRECISION DATA 348
288 PRICE-LINE COMPUTERS INC 422, 421
289 PRINCETON GRAPHIC SYS . 25
291 PRINCETON GRAPHIC SYS 163. 164. 165
292 PRINCETON GRAPHIC SYS 342
293 PRINTERS PLUS 262
294 PRIORITY ONE 462
295 PRO CODE INTERNATIONAL 222
296 PROGRAMMER S SHOP 372
297 PROGRESSIVE MICRO DISTR 104. 105
298 PROTECTO ENTERPR 179
300 PURPLE COMPUTING . 446
301 QIC RESEARCH 26
302 QUA TECH INC 448
303 QUA TECH. INC 448
304 OUA TECH. INC . 448
305 QUADRAM CORP ... 256. 257
306 QUALITY PRINTERS 468
307 OUBIE* 88 89
308 OUELO INC . 446
426 QUICKSOFT 471
309 RADIO SHACK CIV
310 RAINBOW TECHNOLGOIES 463
311 RATIONAL SYSTEMS . 314
312 RfcD RIVER TECHNOLOGY INC 81
313 REFERENCE TECHNOLOGY INC 32
314 RELMS 340
315 ROSE ELECTRONICS . . 468
316 S&K TECHNOLOGY INC 444
317 S-100 DIV 696 CORP 445
318 S-100 DIV 696 CORP. 445
Inquiry No.
Page No.
319 5NW ELECT & APPL 122
320 SAB-LINK INC . 467
321 SAFE WARE 463
322 SAMSUNG ELECT DEVICES 287
• SCOTTSDALE SYSTEMS . 209
324 SEMIDISK SYSTEMS Ill
325 SENTINEL TECHNOLOGIES 226
326 SILICON SPECIALTIES . . 265
327 SILICON SPECIALTIES 265
122 SMARTEK INC 392
329 SOCIETY-APPLIED LRNGTECH 80
330 SOFTCRAKT INC . . 112
331 SOFTKLONE DISTRIBUTING 215
• SOFTLINE CORP 83
332 SOFTRONICS 468
229 SOFTWARE CHANNELS INC 67
333 SOFTWARE LINK THE 199
334 SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS INC 28. 29
335 SOLUTION SYSTEMS . 364
336 SOLUTION SYSTEMS 364
• SOURCE TELECOMP CORP 269
338 SOUTHERN PACIFIC USA INC 280
339 SPECTRUM SOFTWARE 243
405 STATSOFT 425
340 STSC INC 301
341 SUMMIT SOFTWARE TECHN INC 395
• SUNNYVALE COMMUNICATIONS427
342 SUNTRONICS CO INC 442
343 SUPREME COMPANY 348
■ SYSGEN INC . 20 2!
344 SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT ASSOC 387
345 TS MICROTECH INC . . 216
Inquiry No.
Page No
346 TATUM LABS 348
347 TATUNG. . 217
348 TATUNG. . . 217
400 TAXAN CORP . 223
401 TAXAN CORP 223
406 TEAC 245
351 TECH PC 426
352 TECH PC 426
353 TEKTRONIX INC 49
328 TELEMEDIA 212
• TELEVIDEO SYSTEMS 171
• TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 193
355 THOMSON CONSUMER PROD 124
356 THUNDERWARE 54
357 TIGERTRONICS . . . 467
• TINNEY ROBERT GRAPHICS. 337
358 TLM SYSTEMS INC 399
359 TLM SYSTEMS INC 401
360 TLM SYSTEMS INC 403
361 TRANSEC SYSTEMS 182
362 TRUE BASIC 144
363 TURBOPOWER SOFTWARE . .378
392 US POSTAL SERVICE 415
364 US ROBOTICS 379
365 ULTIMATE MEDIA INC 444
366 UNICORN . 450
367 VEN-TEL INC 27
368 VERBATIM CORP 233
• VLM COMPUTER ELECTR 348
371 VCTRAX INC 156
372 WALLING CO ... 471
373 WAREHOUSE DATA PRODUCTS 69
Inquiry No.
Page No.
386 WESTERN COMPUTER . 66
387 WESTERN COMPUTER 66
375 WINTEK CORP 5
376 WINTEK CORP 467
377 WRITING CONSULTANTS. . 258
378 V. YSE TECHNOLOGY 201
379 X-10 USA INC 345
381 XEROX CORP 288. 289
396 Z-SOFT CORP 31
397 Z-SOFT CORP 31
383 ZEDCOR 135
384 ZEDCOR 135
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501 CASIO I44H
502 CITIZEN PRINTERS I44E
503 DELIN INFORMATICA I44D
504 FIGURE FLOW LTD 144D
505 GREY MATTER 144D
506 I NG C OLIVETTI . . 144C
507 MULTITECH INDUSTRIAL CORP 144F
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508 WINTECH CORP I44D
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480 BYTE • DECEMBER 1985
THIS NEC PRINTER
MANUEiOURE 2 MILLION
CARS WITHOUT A REPAIR.
Color Pinwriter CP5 dot matrix printer.
To build 2 million of these cars requires printing more than 25 billion dots. And that's how
many our new Pinwriter'™ P5 printer can print before you have to think about a repair.
This NEC printer is not an exception. In fact, any NEC printer can run an average of
5 years in normal use before it needs a repair.
Such reliability doesn't come easy Every NEC printer is built on a highly automated
assembly line. From the most advanced components in the industry. Then it's subjected to
some of the most demanding tests ever devised for printers.
Reliability is not the only thing this NEC printer has going. It's also the quietest dot
matrix printer in its class. And it has the finest graphics resolution, plus more built-in true
fonts. And it's the fastest multi-speed 24-pin dot matrix printer available.
Now don't you wish NEC also made cars?
Check out a new Pinwriter P5 at your nearest NEC dealer. Or for more information,
call 1-800-343-4418 (in MA 617-264-8635). Or write: NEC
Information Systems, Dept. 1610, 1414 Massachusetts Ave.,
Boxborough, MA 01719.
NEC PRINTERS.THEYONLY STOP WHEN YOU WANTTHEM TO.
c&c
NEC
NEC Information Systems, Inc.
Computers and Communications
Inquiry 264
• '■•
TANDY..
Clearly Superior" 1 ,
Tandy 2000 Computer- Aided Design
Systems combine minicomputer-quality
graphics with PC af f ordability.
With a Tandy 2000 and
Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
software, you can get highly so-
phisticated, reproduction-quality
drawings, graphs and illustra-
tions that you'd expect from a
very expensive, dedicated draft-
ing system.
The Tandy 2000's high resolu-
tion graphics let you create
razor-sharp diagrams, charts
and graphs in a brilliant array of
colors. The precision drafting
and design functions that used
to be available only on main-
frame or minicomputers can
now be yours for less than
$7,000, including software.
And along with improving the
productivity-of your design staff,
you can use the Tandy 2000 for
word processing, accounting,
spreadsheets and many other
business applications.
Look to us for total support,
too. Over 120' . . s
/y\cc<*cu-5> lo
Computer Centers offer leasing
plans, software and accessories.
And almost 60 Area Training
and Support Operations Centers
offer such services as installa-
tion, new user orientation and
training.
CAD doesn't have to be expen-
sive, and it isn't with Tandy l
computers. Ask for a demonstra^
tion at the Radio Shack Com-
puter Center nearest you. The
Tandy 2000 is Clearly Superior!
Available at over 129Q
Radio Shack Computer Centers and at
participating Radio Shack stores and dealers.
Radio /hack
COMPUTER CENTERS
A DIVISION OF TANDY CORPORATION
Prices apply at Radio Shack Computer Centers
and participating stores anct 'dealers. * ,
Inquiry 309
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